There has been one topic in the United States of America that have not concluded until today. Gun control debate has lasted so long, if you lived in the United States, it is impossible to miss. With the honesty, I was never interested in the topic of gun control because I was far from being related. However, as I grew up, I began to meet new friends who have guns in their home or know people who are eligible to use guns. This was the spark of my knowledge toward guns. I was born in Korea and lived there until I was seven years old. I am very familiar with both Korea and United State cultures. One of the many huge difference is that owning guns is illegal in Korea while it is in United States. In the United States, you often hear people using guns as a threat, injured, or killed. However, it is impossible to hear them because only the military or the police owns them. I have always had the thought of guns being the most deadly weapon you can find locally, so unwillingly I have been with the side of "against" guns. Recently, I have realized I should not be going against the guns, when I do not know the reasons why people would want to own a gun. I needed to know the reasons from the both sides of the debate.

The article, "Two Important Arguments from Both 'Sides' of the Gun Debate" by Tauriq Moosa, mainly discusses the claims from the supporters. People that supports gun control says that by owning guns, we can stop from regime control and protect themselves from criminals. When there are no guns, governments have a greater chance for despotism. Foucault, DeBrabander says, "nothing suits power so well as extreme individualism." Without guns, it is harder to protest while if large group of people were armed, it would be harder for anyone to take control. Another popular argument is that if gun ownership becomes a crime, then the only people who have guns will be criminals. This means that the good people will be disadvantaged because they are unarmed while criminals have a huge advantage with guns. Without guns, the chance of fighting back reduces significantly. 

In January 5, 2016, the BBC, British Broadcasting Center, there is an article, "Guns in the US: The statistics behind the violence," that takes on a side of against guns by giving statistics of gun violence in the United States last year. There were 372 mass shootings, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870. Mass shooting is when there are more than 4 people getting killed or injured. Another shocking data was that there were 64 school shootings. Out of all the murders in the United States in 2012, 60% were by guns while the next highest was Canada with 31%. Over half of the murder cases were done by firearms. Within every statistics, the BBC gave a source to where they found the information.

Richard Perez-Pena, a The New York Times writer published, "Gun Control Explained," which gives a point of view from both sides. He clearly states that both sides do not want any children firing a gun, innocent people dead, and family member to die. Nobody wants gun violence to occur but the criminals are the problem. Nobody can distinguish a criminal by the cover page. Despite needing a license or any other legal documents to own a gun, criminals can make an exceptional fake documents, tricking the gun store owners to sell it to them. 

The research was questionable because the arguments stated from the both sides were strong. There may be two sides that argues to have gun control or not but none of the claims are right or wrong. They do not want to hurt anyone, exception of criminals. People wants security by owning a gun in their house, so no one will dare to step into their territories. Also, I agree that criminals can buy guns to commit crimes. After researching about gun control debates and the arguments from the both sides, I am still in the against gun side. If guns were harder to obtain or illegal for everyone, nobody including the criminals would have guns. Guns are very dangerous compared to the knives because guns can be both short and long distances while knives are short distance, unless they are thrown but lots of skills are needed to throw. To revise my research question, I need to make my opinion to favoring guns because I may have been blinded by my own opinion to find a strong statements made from the other side.
