PEAR Paper
Is Gun Control the Solution? Yes and No
Per the PEW Research Center there is around 270 to 310 million guns in the United States alone. So far there has been 17,477 incidents of gun violence, 4,358 deaths from guns, and 101 mass shootings alone in 2017. Is there anything that can be done to lower the amount of gun violence? Is gun control the best solution? Well yes and no.
First and foremost, I want it to be known that I am pro-gun and a libertarian. I believe that everyone should be free to make their own decisions and that law-abiding citizens of the United States should be allowed to purchase and carry weapons. I think this is important to get out of the way so you know where my possible bias might come from. This paper is not going to be me trying to persuade you to purchase a weapon or change your opinion on guns. What this paper is about however is trying to find solutions and ways to combat criminals and terrorists, while not restricting law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. While many will try and tell you that this is a black and white issue, it is not. There is a lot of gray, it is a tough topic to find solutions to. While I believe that there should be as little restrictions as possible I know that is not practical. As much as I wish, that is not the world we live in.
To think that no gun laws would be better than some is ridiculous, at the same time however it is ridiculous to believe that all gun control laws are good or work well. For us as a country to be able to implement good gun control laws, I think that it is a good idea to first look at laws that seem inefficient or even harmful. One of the biggest gun control laws that I believe is harming our country is gun free zones. While I see the good intention behind not allowing guns on school campuses, businesses, and government buildings, are criminals going to follow these laws? John R. Lott Jr. who is an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate said that “law abiding citizens, not criminals, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law abiding citizens left them sitting ducks” (Lott, Jr., 2012). “Per the Crime Prevention Research Center, from the 1950’s through July 10th of 2016, 98.4 percent of mass shootings have occurred on gun-free zones, with just 1.6 percent occurring where citizens are allowed to have firearms with them” (Morse, 2017).
Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting, Virginia Tech., San Bernardino, CA. these high-profile mass shootings took place in gun free zones. Because of what happened at Virginia Tech. it leads to some students protesting the current gun policy at the school which included senior Ryan Martin who said “"If I can carry at Moe's downtown and Chipotle downtown like I do, why can't I carry 300 feet the other way on-campus?" My opinion falls in line with how Ryan feels. While I am at school I don’t want to be an easy target for a potential shooter. I would rather die fighting than barricaded in a room with the potential to die. I believe that if gun free zones were done away with potential shooters might be deterred or even stopped faster than they would waiting for the police to arrive. I didn’t want to be stuck in an echo chamber, so I asked some of my classmates how they felt about guns being allowed on campus.
A girl named Ashley told me “I'm fine with people owning guns but I do believe they should be restricted on college campuses. It's not the place for them. I think there should be designated people who can have guns like police. But besides that, I wouldn't feel safe at all if everyone was allowed to have a gun on campus. especially at parties.” When I asked her why she didn’t believe they should be on the campus she replied “I don't think college kids currently are responsible enough.” I proceeded to ask another girl named Sarah how she felt “I'm not sure how I feel about allowing guns on campus. I would trust my closest friends and families, but I feel that we should have regulations on them as well. Like meeting with someone about your mental state, or maybe you have to answer some questions regarding their mental state and observing if they are in correct conditions to carry around a weapon.” I proceeded to ask her if mental health checks were implemented if she would feel more comfortable with the idea she replied “yes.”
I finally asked Hannah how she felt about guns being allowed on campus to which she replied “I’m okay with it, but it is eerie knowing some crazy might have a gun as well.” These student’s inputs made sense to me. I understand their concerns what they were saying makes sense. Then I researched and found out that for over a decade college campuses in Utah have allowed concealed carry firearms. And besides a couple of threats, nothing serious has happened. It makes me wonder what the results would be on a large-scale practice.
To continue with gun control laws that seem to harm instead of doing good. I found an article written by Kimberly Leonard on US News which talked about research from the British medical journal The Lancet. For the study, they looked at 25 states gun control laws and tried to find the laws that impacted gun deaths the most. What they found was that nine-gun control laws increased deaths, and nine others decreased them. " For example, laws that restrict firearm access to children, including age restrictions, were shown to be ineffective." It also showed that closing the gun show loophole and banning assault weapons could increase deaths. It is worth noting that this study did not consider illegally purchased weapons.
So, what can be done to limit gun violence? From research, it seems to me that the best solution would be to have universal background checks, and try and implement more smart gun technology. Implementing universal background checks on a federal level would eliminate The Brady Bill loophole, or more commonly known as the gun show loophole. Back on January 8th 2016 then President Obama planned to combat gun deaths by requiring the selling of firearms “at stores, gun shows and on the Internet -- get a license” once theses dealers obtained a license “they are required to conduct background checks on all buyers” (Sherman, 2016).
However, private citizens “without a federal license” that don't meet the requirements can still be allowed to sell guns. This loophole allowed shooters such as, Omar Mateen to privately purchase a weapon without a background check. For those of you who are not familiar with the name, Omar was the criminal behind the Pulse nightclub shooting who shot and killed 49 people. With a federal universal background check it would have made it so that people who are on the FBI no-fly list such as Omar would have not been able to purchase a gun. Per the TSDB “800,000 entries, of which 64,000 were on the no-fly list. One in 10 were Americans” (Edgar, 2016).
Some such as Senator Rand Paul are worried that universal background would lead to more crime, and decrease the privacy of citizens. Back in 2013 during an interview with USA Today Mr. Paul said “Well you know it depends on what you are talking about. If they were voluntary, no. If you’re going to mandate background checks on everyone, how will you check to find out if everyone is doing it? You would have to have some kind of registry of gun sales. I’m concerned about what happened in Westchester NY recently when they published who has a gun and who doesn’t have a gun. One if you publish the list and you find out that I have guns in my house now I’m a target for thieves. If you publish the list and say I don’t have guns I’m still a target for thieves. I find it very worrisome that we would publish registers. Also, I’m concerned with future leaders who may come along, who may use that list to confiscate guns.”
Privacy is one of the most important things to me. At the same time though “an estimated 40% of all firearms transferred in the U.S. are transferred by unlicensed individuals.” So what potentially can be done to combat the issue of theft? A potential solution that I have found is allowing the selling of smart guns. Smart guns are guns that only certain users are allowed to use. The most popular models have biometric scanners that put your fingerprints in a database that allows only you to shoot the gun. You can also put friends and family fingerprints on your gun so they can shoot it as well. This would eliminate the problem of theft, if a thief cannot use your gun then they won't steal it.
Smart gun technology faces an uphill battle to make it to the market however. On the website TechCrunch under the article “Why the NRA hates smart guns” it talks about how if smart guns make it to the market it could bring trouble to non-smart gun, guns. “Anti-gun legislators at the state and federal levels will attempt to mandate it in all future guns by comparing it to seat belts, air bags, and other product safety features” (Stokes, 2016). This could be a huge problem, because of the problems that smart guns currently have. This article had an attached article that went into the potential problems. The main concern with most is reliability. Anything that deals with electronics is not fail proof. You are never going to be able to get 100% reliability out of smart guns. “If you don’t have absolute confidence that your gun will shoot every single time the safety is off and you pull the trigger, then that gun is worthless” (Stokes, 2016).
Secondly, there would have to be software that the gun uses to store fingerprints and your identity. This can cause very serious problems as Stokes suggests, “you’ve introduced a whole host of brand new security and identity problems that are new to that thing and that must be discovered and patched, and then the patches will have problems that must be discovered and patched, and on it goes” (Stokes, 2016). I personally believe however, that the pros outweigh the potential cons in this situation.
I understand that it is better to do something than nothing, however, a lot of the potential gun control laws I found are too restricting towards law-abiding citizens. There are things that we can do to try and prevent gun violence from taking place such as better background checks, and implementing such things as smart gun technology. But there is only so much that we can do. Take the drug war for example, we have laws in place that make drugs illegal to consume, but we still have people buying and selling drugs. If there is a market for something people will buy it.
The reality of the gun control issue facing the United States is a unique situation that not many other countries face. We are oversaturated with weapons around 270 to 310 million guns in the United States alone (PEW, 2017) with each year around 4 million new guns are produced.
For all the flack that guns get, I still do believe that they are a tool that can be used both for good or bad. I understand that this tool is designed for killing, however, in the right hands it can provide food, it can be used for recreational fun, it can also stop crimes, and be used for personal protection. From my research, it appears guns can help solve the issue of sexual assault on college campuses. Per the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) “It is estimated that the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions may be between 20% and 25% over the course of a college career.” Or to put that into perspective “…for every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape each academic year.” (Fisher, 2000).
Back in 2015 a college student by the name of Amanda Collins was a victim of rape on a college campus. In her own words, Amanda said “As this stranger raped me while holding a pistol to my temple, I could see the police cruisers parked for the night, and I knew no one was coming to help me. Eventually the man who raped me, James Biela, was caught. He was tried and convicted for not only raping me at gunpoint in a gun-free zone, but also raping two other women and murdering Brianna Denison. So, I ask, “How does rendering me defenseless protect you against a violent crime?” (Collins, 2015)
So, I asked the girls that I had already interviewed questions about this issue. The first question was “Do you think being armed with a handgun would make you feel safer if you received the proper training?” Sarah told me “it might, but I would much rather have a knife, I get shaky in life threatening situations.” I asked the same question to Juliana who replied by saying "The only thing that worries me even with proper training is when do you it's time to shoot to kill? Rather than telling the offender you have a gun on you or even pointing your gun to defend.” I then asked them “Do you think these crimes would be reduced if potential criminals knew more women were armed on campus?” They all either said maybe, or yes. The best response I got was from Sarah who said to me “I feel like some criminals are Satan maniacs and might try to steal their weapon or it might actually reduce the crime rate. If women or men are properly trained well, I feel like it would be reduced.” She raised a good point that I had not even thought about.
With what Sarah said I think that a handgun should probably be a last line of defense against a sexual offender. From what the girls were saying it appears learning self-defense should be the first line of defense, and if that doesn't work to draw a handgun or if you aren't comfortable pepper spray or a Taser.
I looked at statistics reported by the Washington Post in 2014 about rapes reported by campus crime data kept by the U.S. Department of Education. Out of University of Utah, Westminster College, Utah State University, Snow College, Southern Utah University, Brigham Young University-Provo, Utah Valley University, Weber State University, Dixie State University, Independence University, and Stevens-Henagar College there were only 22 reported rapes. I wonder how much that must do with the current gun policy on Utah campuses.
By no means am I suggesting that this will deter and end all rape. Statistically sexual assault at the college level happens with people the victim knows. A lot of the time alcohol is involved, and consent is given on both ends, but then the victim changes her mind. Unfortunately, it is too late to late and sexual assault occurs. I understand that this is how sexual assault typically occurs in general. RAINN reports that “approximately seven out of 10 of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim” (RAINN, 2017). However, this can help those three other girls, on college campus and everywhere else. Smart gun technology could also help prevent harm to the potential victim, and make sure the gun isn’t turned on them.
I understand that this tool is designed for death, I understand that people are going to abuse this tool and use it to hurt and kill innocent people. The thing that I have seen from my research is that people who commit crimes do not care for the law. No matter what the laws are they are going to try and hurt someone one way or another. If they cannot get a gun legally, they will obtain it illegally. If they cannot get a gun they will resort to other means of violence. Take for example the Boston Marathon bombing where two brothers turned a pressure cooker into a bomb the killed three people and injured over 280. Or the terrorist attack in Nice, France where a man drove a cargo truck through a crowd which killed 86 people and injured 434 people. What I am trying to get at is that you can’t kill ideology or theology. From all the research, I have conducted the best course of action seems to be is to implement universal background checks, close the gun show loophole, and arm yourself with a weapon.
In conclusion, I’m not sure what can be done to solve the gun control issue. I don’t find it likely that on the federal level anything is going to be implemented. The lobbyism of the NRA, and the already oversaturated market make it seems improbable that even if there we some federal laws implemented that it would be able to be enforced. The estimated 310 million guns is just that an estimation. The number might be considerably higher. Let's say for example that we decided to make the United States gun free. We told the citizens that they must turn in their guns. How many do you believe would? Let’s say half that own guns do turn them in, you are making the other fifty percent of gun owners who refuse to turn them in into criminals. How would we even be able to find those guns? The whole idea of even a full gun ban seems impossible.
Even though I am a libertarian I understand that are some laws that are necessary to safeguard our civilians from those who wish to do us harm. The problem that the United States is facing is making sure that we can stop guns from getting into the wrong hands while still allowing law-abiding citizens to purchase guns without much of a headache. We shouldn’t allow those with mental illness or terrorists to get their hands-on weapons, and perhaps look at closing the gun show loophole. It is a tough task with no clear-cut solution. I remain optimistic and believe that what's best for this country will get done. IF there are certain laws that you think should get passed, contact your state legislators, it will be much easier to get laws passed on the state level than on the federal.
Bibliography American Gun Facts. (2017, May). A factual look at guns in America. Retrieved from American Gun Facts: http://americangunfacts.com/
Duke, S. (2017, March 1). Sorry: Still No Proof Gun Control Decreases Murder and Mayhem. Retrieved from Observer: http://observer.com/2017/03/donald-trump-gun-control-murder-crime-rate/
Edgar, T. (2016, June 17). Op-Ed Guns and the no-fly list: Of course we shouldn't allow suspected terrorists to buy firearms. Retrieved from Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-edgar-watch-list-no-fly-guns-20160617-snap-story.html
Goldberg, J. (2012, December). The Case for More Guns (and More Gun Control). Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case-for-more-guns-and-more-gun-control/309161/
Governing Data. (2017, May). Gun Show Background Checks State Laws. Retrieved from Governing: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/gun-show-firearms-bankground-checks-state-laws-map.html
Harvey, M. (2017, April 17). Overwhelming number of guns already existing in U.S. makes gun control a nonstarter. Retrieved from The Exponent Telegram: https://www.theet.com/news/free/overwhelming-number-of-guns-already-existing-in-u-s-makes/article_50594327-5851-5f5a-b3ce-c3ff17d32824.html#comments
Horsley, S. (2016, January 5). Guns In America, By The Numbers. Retrieved from NPR: http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-numbers
Hurst, D. (2014, Febuary 24). Concealed carry has not caused much of a problem on Utah campuses. Retrieved from Idaho Reporter: http://idahoreporter.com/33557/concealed-carry-caused-much-problem-utah-campuses/
Jr., J. R. (2012, December 25). Opposing view: Guns in schools can save lives. Retrieved from USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/12/25/gun-free-zone-john-lott/1791085/
Leonard, K. (2016, March 10). Study: Some Gun Control Laws Result in More Deaths. Retrieved from US News: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-10/study-some-gun-control-laws-result-in-more-deaths
Manch, R. (2016, September 30). Virginia Tech student protesting to bring concealed weapons to campus. Retrieved from WSLS: http://www.wsls.com/news/virginia-tech-protests-weapon-policy
Morse, B. (2017, Januray 9). http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/01/09/over-98-of-mass-shootings-occurred-on-gun-free-zones-research-shows/. Retrieved from The Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/01/09/over-98-of-mass-shootings-occurred-on-gun-free-zones-research-shows/
PEW Research Center. (2017). Gun Control. Retrieved from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/gun-control/
RAINN. (2017, May). About Sexual Assault. Retrieved from RAINN: https://www.rainn.org/
SHAW, K. (2017, March 16). What Is a ‘Gun-Free Zone,’ and What’s Behind the Movement to Get Rid of Them? Retrieved from The Trace: https://www.thetrace.org/2017/03/gun-free-zone-facts/
Sherman, A. (2016, January 7). PolitiFact Sheet: 3 things to know about the 'gun show loophole'. Retrieved from PolitiFact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jan/07/politifact-sheet-3-things-know-about-gun-show-loop/
Sherman, A. (2017, February 21). Do most mass shootings happen in gun-free zones? Retrieved from Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2017/feb/21/richard-corcoran/do-most-mass-shootings-happen-gun-free-zones/
Smart Gun Laws. (2017, May). Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence. Retrieved from Smart Gun Laws: http://smartgunlaws.org/
Smart Gun Laws. (2017, May). Universal Background Checks. Retrieved from Smart Gun Laws: http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/
Smart Tech. (2017, May). Fingerprint Guns. Retrieved from Smart Tech: https://smarttechfoundation.org/smart-firearms-technology/fingerprint-guns/
Stokes, J. (2016, January 5). Why Obama’s Smart Gun Push Will Misfire. Retrieved from Tech Crunch: https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/05/why-obamas-smart-gun-push-will-misfire/
Stokes, J. (2016, April 30). Why the NRA hates smart guns. Retrieved from Tech Crunch: https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/30/why-the-nra-hates-smart-guns/
Willingham, A. (2016, June 21). A visual guide: Mass shootings in America. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/13/health/mass-shootings-in-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/
Per the PEW Research Center there is around 270 to 310 million guns in the United States alone. So far there has been 17,477 incidents of gun violence, 4,358 deaths from guns, and 101 mass shootings alone in 2017. Is there anything that can be done to lower the amount of gun violence? Is gun control the best solution? Well yes and no.
First and foremost, I want it to be known that I am pro-gun and a libertarian. I believe that everyone should be free to make their own decisions and that law-abiding citizens of the United States should be allowed to purchase and carry weapons. I think this is important to get out of the way so you know where my possible bias might come from. This paper is not going to be me trying to persuade you to purchase a weapon or change your opinion on guns. What this paper is about however is trying to find solutions and ways to combat criminals and terrorists, while not restricting law-abiding citizens from obtaining guns. While many will try and tell you that this is a black and white issue, it is not. There is a lot of gray, it is a tough topic to find solutions to. While I believe that there should be as little restrictions as possible I know that is not practical. As much as I wish, that is not the world we live in.
To think that no gun laws would be better than some is ridiculous, at the same time however it is ridiculous to believe that all gun control laws are good or work well. For us as a country to be able to implement good gun control laws, I think that it is a good idea to first look at laws that seem inefficient or even harmful. One of the biggest gun control laws that I believe is harming our country is gun free zones. While I see the good intention behind not allowing guns on school campuses, businesses, and government buildings, are criminals going to follow these laws? John R. Lott Jr. who is an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate said that “law abiding citizens, not criminals, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law abiding citizens left them sitting ducks” (Lott, Jr., 2012). “Per the Crime Prevention Research Center, from the 1950’s through July 10th of 2016, 98.4 percent of mass shootings have occurred on gun-free zones, with just 1.6 percent occurring where citizens are allowed to have firearms with them” (Morse, 2017).
Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting, Virginia Tech., San Bernardino, CA. these high-profile mass shootings took place in gun free zones. Because of what happened at Virginia Tech. it leads to some students protesting the current gun policy at the school which included senior Ryan Martin who said “"If I can carry at Moe's downtown and Chipotle downtown like I do, why can't I carry 300 feet the other way on-campus?" My opinion falls in line with how Ryan feels. While I am at school I don’t want to be an easy target for a potential shooter. I would rather die fighting than barricaded in a room with the potential to die. I believe that if gun free zones were done away with potential shooters might be deterred or even stopped faster than they would waiting for the police to arrive. I didn’t want to be stuck in an echo chamber, so I asked some of my classmates how they felt about guns being allowed on campus.
A girl named Ashley told me “I'm fine with people owning guns but I do believe they should be restricted on college campuses. It's not the place for them. I think there should be designated people who can have guns like police. But besides that, I wouldn't feel safe at all if everyone was allowed to have a gun on campus. especially at parties.” When I asked her why she didn’t believe they should be on the campus she replied “I don't think college kids currently are responsible enough.” I proceeded to ask another girl named Sarah how she felt “I'm not sure how I feel about allowing guns on campus. I would trust my closest friends and families, but I feel that we should have regulations on them as well. Like meeting with someone about your mental state, or maybe you have to answer some questions regarding their mental state and observing if they are in correct conditions to carry around a weapon.” I proceeded to ask her if mental health checks were implemented if she would feel more comfortable with the idea she replied “yes.”
I finally asked Hannah how she felt about guns being allowed on campus to which she replied “I’m okay with it, but it is eerie knowing some crazy might have a gun as well.” These student’s inputs made sense to me. I understand their concerns what they were saying makes sense. Then I researched and found out that for over a decade college campuses in Utah have allowed concealed carry firearms. And besides a couple of threats, nothing serious has happened. It makes me wonder what the results would be on a large-scale practice.
To continue with gun control laws that seem to harm instead of doing good. I found an article written by Kimberly Leonard on US News which talked about research from the British medical journal The Lancet. For the study, they looked at 25 states gun control laws and tried to find the laws that impacted gun deaths the most. What they found was that nine-gun control laws increased deaths, and nine others decreased them. " For example, laws that restrict firearm access to children, including age restrictions, were shown to be ineffective." It also showed that closing the gun show loophole and banning assault weapons could increase deaths. It is worth noting that this study did not consider illegally purchased weapons.
So, what can be done to limit gun violence? From research, it seems to me that the best solution would be to have universal background checks, and try and implement more smart gun technology. Implementing universal background checks on a federal level would eliminate The Brady Bill loophole, or more commonly known as the gun show loophole. Back on January 8th 2016 then President Obama planned to combat gun deaths by requiring the selling of firearms “at stores, gun shows and on the Internet -- get a license” once theses dealers obtained a license “they are required to conduct background checks on all buyers” (Sherman, 2016).
However, private citizens “without a federal license” that don't meet the requirements can still be allowed to sell guns. This loophole allowed shooters such as, Omar Mateen to privately purchase a weapon without a background check. For those of you who are not familiar with the name, Omar was the criminal behind the Pulse nightclub shooting who shot and killed 49 people. With a federal universal background check it would have made it so that people who are on the FBI no-fly list such as Omar would have not been able to purchase a gun. Per the TSDB “800,000 entries, of which 64,000 were on the no-fly list. One in 10 were Americans” (Edgar, 2016).
Some such as Senator Rand Paul are worried that universal background would lead to more crime, and decrease the privacy of citizens. Back in 2013 during an interview with USA Today Mr. Paul said “Well you know it depends on what you are talking about. If they were voluntary, no. If you’re going to mandate background checks on everyone, how will you check to find out if everyone is doing it? You would have to have some kind of registry of gun sales. I’m concerned about what happened in Westchester NY recently when they published who has a gun and who doesn’t have a gun. One if you publish the list and you find out that I have guns in my house now I’m a target for thieves. If you publish the list and say I don’t have guns I’m still a target for thieves. I find it very worrisome that we would publish registers. Also, I’m concerned with future leaders who may come along, who may use that list to confiscate guns.”
Privacy is one of the most important things to me. At the same time though “an estimated 40% of all firearms transferred in the U.S. are transferred by unlicensed individuals.” So what potentially can be done to combat the issue of theft? A potential solution that I have found is allowing the selling of smart guns. Smart guns are guns that only certain users are allowed to use. The most popular models have biometric scanners that put your fingerprints in a database that allows only you to shoot the gun. You can also put friends and family fingerprints on your gun so they can shoot it as well. This would eliminate the problem of theft, if a thief cannot use your gun then they won't steal it.
Smart gun technology faces an uphill battle to make it to the market however. On the website TechCrunch under the article “Why the NRA hates smart guns” it talks about how if smart guns make it to the market it could bring trouble to non-smart gun, guns. “Anti-gun legislators at the state and federal levels will attempt to mandate it in all future guns by comparing it to seat belts, air bags, and other product safety features” (Stokes, 2016). This could be a huge problem, because of the problems that smart guns currently have. This article had an attached article that went into the potential problems. The main concern with most is reliability. Anything that deals with electronics is not fail proof. You are never going to be able to get 100% reliability out of smart guns. “If you don’t have absolute confidence that your gun will shoot every single time the safety is off and you pull the trigger, then that gun is worthless” (Stokes, 2016).
Secondly, there would have to be software that the gun uses to store fingerprints and your identity. This can cause very serious problems as Stokes suggests, “you’ve introduced a whole host of brand new security and identity problems that are new to that thing and that must be discovered and patched, and then the patches will have problems that must be discovered and patched, and on it goes” (Stokes, 2016). I personally believe however, that the pros outweigh the potential cons in this situation.
I understand that it is better to do something than nothing, however, a lot of the potential gun control laws I found are too restricting towards law-abiding citizens. There are things that we can do to try and prevent gun violence from taking place such as better background checks, and implementing such things as smart gun technology. But there is only so much that we can do. Take the drug war for example, we have laws in place that make drugs illegal to consume, but we still have people buying and selling drugs. If there is a market for something people will buy it.
The reality of the gun control issue facing the United States is a unique situation that not many other countries face. We are oversaturated with weapons around 270 to 310 million guns in the United States alone (PEW, 2017) with each year around 4 million new guns are produced.
For all the flack that guns get, I still do believe that they are a tool that can be used both for good or bad. I understand that this tool is designed for killing, however, in the right hands it can provide food, it can be used for recreational fun, it can also stop crimes, and be used for personal protection. From my research, it appears guns can help solve the issue of sexual assault on college campuses. Per the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) “It is estimated that the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions may be between 20% and 25% over the course of a college career.” Or to put that into perspective “…for every 1,000 women attending a college or university, there are 35 incidents of rape each academic year.” (Fisher, 2000).
Back in 2015 a college student by the name of Amanda Collins was a victim of rape on a college campus. In her own words, Amanda said “As this stranger raped me while holding a pistol to my temple, I could see the police cruisers parked for the night, and I knew no one was coming to help me. Eventually the man who raped me, James Biela, was caught. He was tried and convicted for not only raping me at gunpoint in a gun-free zone, but also raping two other women and murdering Brianna Denison. So, I ask, “How does rendering me defenseless protect you against a violent crime?” (Collins, 2015)
So, I asked the girls that I had already interviewed questions about this issue. The first question was “Do you think being armed with a handgun would make you feel safer if you received the proper training?” Sarah told me “it might, but I would much rather have a knife, I get shaky in life threatening situations.” I asked the same question to Juliana who replied by saying "The only thing that worries me even with proper training is when do you it's time to shoot to kill? Rather than telling the offender you have a gun on you or even pointing your gun to defend.” I then asked them “Do you think these crimes would be reduced if potential criminals knew more women were armed on campus?” They all either said maybe, or yes. The best response I got was from Sarah who said to me “I feel like some criminals are Satan maniacs and might try to steal their weapon or it might actually reduce the crime rate. If women or men are properly trained well, I feel like it would be reduced.” She raised a good point that I had not even thought about.
With what Sarah said I think that a handgun should probably be a last line of defense against a sexual offender. From what the girls were saying it appears learning self-defense should be the first line of defense, and if that doesn't work to draw a handgun or if you aren't comfortable pepper spray or a Taser.
I looked at statistics reported by the Washington Post in 2014 about rapes reported by campus crime data kept by the U.S. Department of Education. Out of University of Utah, Westminster College, Utah State University, Snow College, Southern Utah University, Brigham Young University-Provo, Utah Valley University, Weber State University, Dixie State University, Independence University, and Stevens-Henagar College there were only 22 reported rapes. I wonder how much that must do with the current gun policy on Utah campuses.
By no means am I suggesting that this will deter and end all rape. Statistically sexual assault at the college level happens with people the victim knows. A lot of the time alcohol is involved, and consent is given on both ends, but then the victim changes her mind. Unfortunately, it is too late to late and sexual assault occurs. I understand that this is how sexual assault typically occurs in general. RAINN reports that “approximately seven out of 10 of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim” (RAINN, 2017). However, this can help those three other girls, on college campus and everywhere else. Smart gun technology could also help prevent harm to the potential victim, and make sure the gun isn’t turned on them.
I understand that this tool is designed for death, I understand that people are going to abuse this tool and use it to hurt and kill innocent people. The thing that I have seen from my research is that people who commit crimes do not care for the law. No matter what the laws are they are going to try and hurt someone one way or another. If they cannot get a gun legally, they will obtain it illegally. If they cannot get a gun they will resort to other means of violence. Take for example the Boston Marathon bombing where two brothers turned a pressure cooker into a bomb the killed three people and injured over 280. Or the terrorist attack in Nice, France where a man drove a cargo truck through a crowd which killed 86 people and injured 434 people. What I am trying to get at is that you can’t kill ideology or theology. From all the research, I have conducted the best course of action seems to be is to implement universal background checks, close the gun show loophole, and arm yourself with a weapon.
In conclusion, I’m not sure what can be done to solve the gun control issue. I don’t find it likely that on the federal level anything is going to be implemented. The lobbyism of the NRA, and the already oversaturated market make it seems improbable that even if there we some federal laws implemented that it would be able to be enforced. The estimated 310 million guns is just that an estimation. The number might be considerably higher. Let's say for example that we decided to make the United States gun free. We told the citizens that they must turn in their guns. How many do you believe would? Let’s say half that own guns do turn them in, you are making the other fifty percent of gun owners who refuse to turn them in into criminals. How would we even be able to find those guns? The whole idea of even a full gun ban seems impossible.
Even though I am a libertarian I understand that are some laws that are necessary to safeguard our civilians from those who wish to do us harm. The problem that the United States is facing is making sure that we can stop guns from getting into the wrong hands while still allowing law-abiding citizens to purchase guns without much of a headache. We shouldn’t allow those with mental illness or terrorists to get their hands-on weapons, and perhaps look at closing the gun show loophole. It is a tough task with no clear-cut solution. I remain optimistic and believe that what's best for this country will get done. IF there are certain laws that you think should get passed, contact your state legislators, it will be much easier to get laws passed on the state level than on the federal.
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