Casey 1

Guns, Crime and the Space Between Peace does not sell in todays media. The headlines will constantly run red with the blood of tragic death. Often guns are depicted as the reason for many of these grotesque murders. It is the human way to designate something other than a person as the scapegoat in many of these despicable acts. Video Games made him murder his fellow students! or perhaps it was the violent music he enjoyed listening to. I always hear many people making comments such as well if we had stricter gun laws he wouldnt have been able to shoot up the school! This is nonsense of course; think of it like this; if the boys involved in Columbine hadnt gotten guns would they have never hurt anyone? Someone with that kind of capacity for murder would have just walked away and never harmed a soul because he couldnt get a gun in a store? In the case of Columbine the boys had set up an explosive that malfunctioned before the shooting. It was fabricated with things you could buy in Wal-Mart this very day! Perhaps without guns they could have focused on bomb making instead. If guns are restricted and made nearly impossible for law abiding citizens to purchase, than law abiding citizens wont have any guns. Criminals will always be able to find weapons, just like they are able to find drugs. Crack and Heroin have been illegal for decades and yet somehow junkies are still seen almost everywhere you go. Even if the government banned every single gun there would really be no way to enforce that regulation. Crime would remain the same and probably increase because many lawful gun owners would not surrender their arms, making them criminals.

Casey 2
According to an article written in the Cato Journal, they performed a study that dates back to 1968 tracking every gun law and applying it to an experiment that would see its effect on crime. After many decades they concluded state data does not mask the relationship flowing from high crime rates to the subsequent adoption of gun laws. The fact remains that no careful empirical study, regardless of the type of data used, has found a negative relationship between gun control measures and crime rates. Assuming that gun control is ineffective, the question remains why? The answer may be twofold. One, it might be that gun control simply does not influence the behavior of criminals in their efforts to obtain and use firearms. Law abiding citizens can be expected to conform to the law and obtain permits, register guns, and enroll in firearm safety courses. By contrast, there would be no surprise if it were found that criminals regularly violate the law by purchasing guns on illegal black markets or by stealing them (Brent p. 122). After all their years of studying this topic from a scientific point of view, no correlation could be derived between crime and gun control. Many people might argue that stricter gun laws might make the police departments job easier; high capacity magazines and assault weapons make a police officers life much more dangerous. I thought that this could be true so I investigated the subject to find the law enforcement perspective. These polls were conducted on a national level with over 15,000 police officers participating in it. Of the gun-control legislation proposed at the federal level, 71 percent of officers said a ban on "assault weapons" would not reduce violent crime and 96 percent of officers said banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds would not reduce violent crime. Officers strongly supported legal concealed carry for citizens with 91 percent in favor. Officers also said the No. 1 way to stop mass shootings is more permissive concealed-

Casey 3
carry policies for citizens. The support for arming teachers or school staff providing they are vetted, trained and qualify annually was at 77 percent in the national poll. Giving teachers or school staff the ability to stop an active killer would change the image that schools are easy targets making potential active killers think twice about choosing such locations(Sowinksi). Police are highly in favor of giving more weapons permits out because It makes the criminal second guess about committing a crime. They don't know if their potential victims are armed or not" (Sowinksi). Civilians armed with concealed handguns become an extra police force, one that is invisible and can deter criminals. Crooks dont want to get shot, they want an easy target they can intimidate and rob. Believe it or not I am not some sort of right wing, gun freak with a fetish for the second amendment. I just dont like surrendering any of my rights out of fear of those that do wrong in our great nation. We are stronger than the criminals and shouldnt have to change our hobbies, interests and/or way of life because we are afraid someone might do us harm. I am a gun owner and I hope I never have to use any of my weapons for anything other than sport and recreational shooting but I cant deny the peace of mind it gives me having a weapon to help save mine or someone elses life. I am not a criminal and dont plan on becoming one and if you asked me why I collect weapons; I would ask you why do people collect stamps or anything elsebecause it is fascinating and a part of history. Hindsight is always 20/20 but we must evaluate different things in our past to get an idea of how to prevent dreadful events from reoccurring. If one teacher had a handgun on them during the Sandyhook massacre, think about the difference that could have made, if one

Casey 4
person in the movie theatre in Colorado had a handgun, think of the lives that could have been saved. Weapons are very dangerous tools that can be highly intimidating but with proper training, information and storage these tools can be used for good. The Background Check The biggest flaw in Gun ownership and purchasing, I have found occurs at the purchasing stage. The background check system is only effective to a point. No matter where or how you buy a weapon a background check will be performed on you. There is no way around this unless you buy the weapon illegally. The punishment for selling guns without a background check is a felony and incarceration. Anyone with a criminal background or arrest, even for drug possession will not be able to buy a gun legally. 1. Juveniles 2. Fugitives from justice 3. Persons under indictment for, or already convicted of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than a year 4. Persons unlawfully using controlled substances 5. Persons legally determined to be mentally defective or committed to a mental institution 6. Aliens illegally in the United States 7. Persons dishonorably discharged from the armed forces 8. Persons who have renounced U.S. citizenship 9. Persons subject to court order restraining them from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or a child 10.persons convicted of a felony or misdemeanor related to domestic violence (Utter p.24). The dealer also has the right to deny you purchase of a firearm if he or she decides you seem suspicious regardless if you pass a background check or not. The flaw with this background check is that there is no way to tell if you are mentally ill unless you have been institutionalized or come clean. If you havent been diagnosed there

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really is no way for a gun store to know. Schizophrenia has been the number one thing in common with most mass shootings. This is a serious problem that must be addressed early on in primary school rather than allowing it to cultivate and become dangerous. We cant keep regurgitating the same political rhetoric about guns being the root of all evil. Florida vs. Illinois Last year Florida made their handgun permit laws more relaxed and have issued more handgun permits than ever before, in fact they have hit the 1,000,000 mark in permits issued. Now according to the media this would mean crime rates should have increased significantly but instead Floridas crime rate is well below the national average. To build off of that fact; America today is safer than it has ever been. Crime is at an all-time low yet no news station will report that because that doesnt sell. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Illinois, particularly the city of Chicago has put into effect the second strictest gun laws in the nation. The laws border on unconstitutional and yet they have the highest murder rate in the nation . In new crime statistics released Monday; the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 500 murders in Chicago in 2012 (Wilson). To put it into perspective, 2,292 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan over the last 10 years. One place is an American city the latter is a warzone. Past Prediction Many analysts and writers like to speculate on different trends and make predictions about the future. Anti-gun parties claimed in the 1980s it is often argued that guns are

Casey 6
themselves a cause of violent crime, that in the absence of guns much of what is now violent crime would be qualitatively different and, indeed, essentially benign. Therefore, if there were fewer guns in private hands, less criminal violence would be committed (Wright p130). That was written many years ago and couldnt be more false. Crime rates are at an all-time low; there is 1/3 the violent crime now than there was in 1994. In 1994 the assault weapons ban expired and left most people wondering what effect it had achieved. During the time this law was in effect the carnage at Columbine occurred, two teenagers beat the federal governments law and acquired assault weapons. The law did not prevent any part of the incident from happening. In fact assault weapons only account for 1% of violent crime in the United States. Yet many would have you believe that these weapons are responsible for slaughtering Americans every day. The killer who shot up Sandyhook used two .22 caliber handguns and his assault weapon never entered the school; in Colorado the shooter used a 12 gauge shotgun, one of the most common hunting weapons. All the legislation that democrats want to put into effect could not have stopped those two very grim events. The focus needs to be handguns and not assault rifles. Handguns are the most common weapon used in murders around the U.S. Yet they have the strictest rules and background checks involved with them. As you can see gun control laws have had little effect on crime in America. Crime has gone down and gun sales have gone up. According to DOJs Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. gun-related homicides dropped 39 percent over the course of 18 years, from 18,253 during 1993, to 11,101 in 2011. During the same period, non-fatal firearm crimes decreased even

Casey 7
more, a whopping 69 percent. The majority of those declines in both categories occurred during the first 10 years of that time frame. Firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006, and then declined again through 2011. Non-fatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004, then fluctuated in the mid-to-late 2000s (Bell). It has dropped another 12 % since 2007 and seems to be dropping slightly this year as fewer murders were recorded in big cities like New York. Guns are a profitable industry and are just a hobby for most people. The criminals make up a very small portion of our society and we shouldnt change the rules to accommodate the wrong doers. Economic struggles, lack of education and the absence of parents have a larger effect on crime rates than guns. Mental illness that is treatable has also been the cause for much of the crime. We need to stop spotlighting one tool used by these people and start focusing on the bigger picture. We are already on our way to a brighter tomorrow and if we can work together on these social issues we will be better off, rather than trying to get rid of something that is woven so tightly into our culture. You dont have to own, handle or fire a weapon to appreciate this. You just need to consider the facts

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James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi and Kathleen Daly. Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America. Hawthorne: New York, 1983. Print.

Utter, Glenn H. Encyclopedia of Gun Control and Gun Rights. Phoenix: Arizona, 2000. Print.

Moorhouse, John C.Wanner, Brent. "Does Gun Control Reduce Crime or Does Crime Increase Gun Control?. CATO Journal 26.1 (2006): 103. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.

Sowinski, Greg. "Cops Say Gun Control Proposals do Nothing to Stop Crime." McClatchy - Tribune Business NewsApr 13 2013. ProQuest. Web. 12 Nov. 2013 .

Workman, Dave. "Cracking Down on Law-Abiding Gun Owners Won't Prevent Crimes." U.S.News & World Report 07 2012: 1.ProQuest. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.

Wilson, Reid. FBI: Chicago passes New York as murder capital of U.S. Washington Post, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Bell, Larry. Disarming Realities: As Gun Sales Soar, Gun Crimes Plummet Forbes, 14 May. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

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