Ideally, pro-gun advocates would like people to believe that if everyone carried guns, the world would be a safer place. But there are reasons that some people should not carry guns, not everyone is mentally stable enough to handle possessing them!
Even the most mild-mannered person can sometimes snap. It is easy to picture how the average person can take things too far with a gun nearby. Mistakes will happen with both previously stable and mentally-ill citizens.
No, limiting guns may not solve the “root” of the problem. This band-aid can help reduce the number of fatal mistakes though and contribute to a safer (although not perfect) country. Consider these points.
-Surviving a knife attack is easier than remaining alive after facing a gunman. A 1967 University of Chicago study supports this notion. The research concludes that if “every gunshot attack reported is an attack in earnest or worse, the death rate per 100 attacks in earnest by guns would still be two and one-half times that of the death rate per 100 attacks in earnest by knives.”
-In a study led by Christopher S. Koper, the effects of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004, were found inconclusive because of limited evidence. Nevertheless, it is notable that Koper concedes “that long term restrictions on these guns and magazines could potentially produce at least a small reduction in shootings.”
-Stricter background checks when purchasing guns needs to happen. According to the New Yorker, “an estimated 40 percent of gun sales today are “private” sales not involving a licensed dealer: these transactions take place at gun shows, in parking lots and increasingly, on the Internet. Private sales do not require a background check, and because there is no mechanism for the A.T.F. (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to collect or maintain records on these sales, they are virtually untraceable.”
-With all the commotion the National Rifle Association (NRA) makes about the government trying to take away guns, the United States still holds “40 percent of the planet’s civilian firearms,” as stated in an article posted on The Huffington Post’s website last December. Yet, the death rate by firearms is still twice as much as the next developed country, “Finland, with a firearms death rate of 4.47 per 100,000 people in 2008.”
-Also, in Arizona three years ago, “Arizona’s gun death rate was 14.57, compared to the national rate of 10.26” as pointed out on commongunsense.com. This was the year “Arizona began to allow permit-less concealed carry.”
-Not only is the death rate high, but statistics found on CNN show that ”serious but non-fatal gun injuries caused during assault have actually increased in the last decade by 20 percent, as guns laws have gotten looser and getting automatic weapons has become easier.”
The arguments advocating for more guns are not without logic. Yet, a world where everyone carries a firearm still sounds scary. These statistics show that guns have not made the United States safer, yet, the NRA wants to promote more firearms? Some compromise must be found.