Why gun control is wrong

In this way aviation is like scuba diving, or motorcycle riding, or other statistically risky pursuits whose risks are concentrated on the practitioner. If the same were true of guns—that people using them were the only ones getting hurt or killed—the public debate would be quite different. Number 2: If gun use and ownership were even 1 percent as tightly regulated as anything involving aviation, the landscape would also be entirely different.

Pilots are licensed, registered, subject to recurrent checks of everything from what prescription drugs they are taking to whether they have had any brushes with the law, apart from myriad regular checks of proficiency. Sample: want to come with me for a night-time plane ride?

Fine—but I need to have made three full takeoff-and-landing cycles at night time, in the previous 90 days, before I can legally take anyone with me in a plane at night. Do I want to use my instrument rating to make a flight when the weather is bad?

Do I want to fly at all? Let me tell you about the Biennial Flight Review, and the mandatory annual very detailed inspections of the plane itself. Yes, a determined and suicidal pilot could fly right through that and do damage. Society would figure that it could not take that risk again. Gaithersburg, where my propeller plane was at the time, was totally closed for about three months. No one could land or take off from there.

The flight schools, maintenance shops, charter operations, and other businesses there were cut off cold, and of course many failed. Imagine the parallel with guns. People who did not choose to expose themselves to gun risks, who were just going to a day at school, now lie dead, barely into their teens.

When I first suspected that I was losing my hair, I felt like maybe I was also losing my grip on reality. This was the summer of , and although the previous three months had been difficult for virtually everyone, I had managed to escape relatively unscathed.

My loved ones were safe. I still had a job. Now my hair was falling out for no appreciable reason. The second time it happened, a little more than a year later, I was sure—not because of what was in the shower drain, but because of what was obviously no longer on my head. One day, after washing and drying my hair, I looked at my hairline in the mirror and it was thin enough that I could make out the curvature of my scalp beneath it. When I looked at it, the panic became sharp. Tony Judt said that there is darkness in this world, and that darkness often triumphed—and liberated me to do the same.

I always find it hard to list the books that have influenced me the most. Moreover, people who set as their job the task of judging what others do, and why, are not always reliable when turning the lens upon themselves.

Still, on that changing list there are a few mainstays. Having, at that time, read very little of Tony, I was left with the impression of an intellectual monk who eschewed the dictates of party or crowd.

When the Supreme Court has ruled, it has been more likely to allow regulation than to prohibit it, at least at the state level. Even Daniel Polsby, a lawyer and one of the most eloquent and persuasive opponents of gun control, suggests that seeking constitutional protection under the Second Amendment is a flawed approach.

He argues that a guaranteed right to bear arms under any circumstances, including those that might endanger public safety, would provide grounds for repeal of the amendment rather than a case for respecting it. Instead, Polsby argues that the best reason for opposing gun control is that "gun control laws don't work. The terms, but not the tenor, of the debate have changed. Some of the most persuasive of the gun control opponents employ economic arguments, using rational choice theory to demonstrate the inability of regulation to stop the flow of guns into neighborhoods where crime is the dominant employer in local labor markets.

Gun control advocates argue from a public health standpoint, noting that while guns may not cause violence, they do cause violence to be far more lethal. This "lethality," in suicide and accidents as well as homicide, is the imperative from a public health perspective for regulating guns like other deadly substances. I recently listened to a debate, staged by a public policy school, that featured two respected figures hurling statistics at each other.

They treated each other with disdain. I was appalled that this was the way in which we modeled "public affairs" for adults, let alone for young people. Despite my own bias in favor of regulation, I found myself wondering if such regulation could be effective in a society so full of discord and so lacking in civil discourse.

Opponents of regulation argue that laws are not the primary arbiter of behavior. On the other hand, there is surely a social cost when "bad" laws are disregarded, divert resources, or produce a false sense of security. Others would argue that the role of law is not primarily to change behavior, but to reflect the behavioral norms that a society professes.

Even when these norms conflict, the process by which they are negotiated suggests a value in accepting the outcomes. An Alternative Process Consider the following primary learning objectives established for a curriculum that addresses public policy approaches to reducing gang violence: 1 to increase student knowledge of the problem, substituting facts and specific information for stereotypes and generalities 2 to listen to a range of opinions, gaining practice both in persuading others to change and in being open to change 3 to understand that laws need not only to have worthy ends, but must provide effective means 4 to demonstrate the role of ordinary citizens in shaping good laws.

These objectives apply equally well to the study of gun control or to any other public policy issue. It is not necessary that issues be violence-related in order to teach the fundamental concepts of social justice, public responsibility, tolerance, and equity. But issues related to violence underscore form with function. A classroom debate on gun control as part of a violence-reduction curriculum offers an appealing option, but also presents a situation to be avoided.

The appeal of a point-counterpoint method of engaging students in learning models the real-life process of public policy making. But the rancorous, uncivil, and often unproductive nature of the debate-as it has been conducted in the real-life models of state legislatures, the national media, and the halls of Congress-is at odds with producing either good citizens or effective policy. The challenge is to combine the attraction and inherent interest of the issue with a genuine desire to seek information, solutions, and above all, effective public policy.

In attempting to reduce gun violence, the policy debate has focused on regulatory vs. As students consider policy alternatives, it can be helpful to examine the truth of these beliefs and to investigate the context that gives rise to these notions about the so-called American gun culture. While it is difficult to deny the existence of those ,, guns, it is worthwhile to examine how and why they came into the possession of their owners, and what factors influence their use. Students might also look at other problems with parallel conditions that might suggest solutions to the problem of gun violence.

The following list is merely suggestive of topics that may crop up in your curriculum. Some provide support for popularly held notions, while others might cause students to examine the motives as well as the content of some policy stances. For instance, some of the earliest gun legislation passed during the post-Civil War era was aimed at disarming recently freed slaves.

On the other hand, while we think of the Old West as a place of unfettered freedom, frontier communities often exercised their own controls, as demonstrated by such familiar images as cowboys checking their guns at the entrance to the dance hall. Much of the debate about gun control concerns handguns.

There are various proposals at the city, state, and national level. They range from registration to outright bans on handguns. Below are some of the most frequently heard arguments in the debates over handgun laws. Arguments against Handgun Control American citizens have a legal right to own handguns under the Second Amendment, which says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. People do. As per data compiled by the Pew Research Centre, about 30 per cent of American adults said they personally own a gun and an additional 11 per cent said that they live with someone who owns a gun.

The results were compiled from a survey conducted between March-April Further, as per this survey, about two-thirds of the gun owners said that one of the major reasons for owning a firearm was protection, followed by hunting 38 per cent , sport shooting 30 per cent , gun collecting 13 per cent or their job 8 per cent. The majority of Americans believed that gun laws should be stricter, according to a survey conducted in September But Americans were still divided over the idea if strict gun control laws would lead to fewer mass shootings, as per a poll taken in the fall of , also by Pew.

While 47 per cent of the people surveyed said there would be fewer mass shootings if it was harder for people to obtain guns, 46 per cent said that there would be no difference.

Following the recent incidents, Biden has called for the Congress to work on stricter gun control measures. Broadly, there has been a divide in how Republicans and Democrats see gun laws. While the Republicans have typically resisted making gun control stricter, Democrats have supported it. One eye-popping statistic is that a majority of the worst acts of violence dealing with a gun are by people who have never actually violated the law in America before.

People say that such violent gun acts are by criminals anyway. So putting a ban on all guns from law bidding citizens would have no real effect. However, it would be good if they showed a statistical chart on all the people who committed violent guns acts and break it down to if they were criminals before or if it was their first offense.

Gun control is a highly debated topic because hunters and recreational shooters carry and use guns for a living while others carry guns for malicious intent and a mind to kill. People argue about gun control because a lot of people do not misuse the weapons but all it takes is one well-coordinated.

The law protects the innocent from being wrongfully persecuted and is an extra layer of protection. Fear of death is the worst possible fear of all. Grossman Germani Clara. People buy guns for their reasons. The negative attitude towards the stand your ground law is often caused by a lack of knowledge and misinterpretation of important information.

He knows that having protection of a firearm makes him safer, yet he wants to take away the rights of responsible gun owners. Although guns have been used for the wrong reasons. People have obtained guns illegally and put many lives in danger. This has caused the debate of rather gun control should be kept or banned.

Gun control is a set of laws or system that manage the use, sale, manufacture, and ownership of firearms. Although guns are great for personal safety, they can turn a small problem into a much bigger and harder to control one in just seconds. My personal belief on guns is that they are there to protect us as a society. Whether it be a police officer or a soldier or even your mom, guns can be used for good.

I was brought up around guns and I learned how to safely handle them, but others do not have the experience I do and therefore misuse their weapon. We are protected under the second amendment right —the right to bear arms for all citizens— US constitution but all citizens includes criminals and mentally insane.