Whether we acknowledge it or not, there are thousands of people that pass away each day due to a plethora of reasons.  Death is never an easy thing, but it can be even more unsettling knowing that people take their own lives or the lives of other people from the misuse of firearms. The topic of gun control is something that has been around for hundreds of years but is becoming more of a political issue in today's society. When talking about gun laws people usually either believe in stricter gun laws or people believe in individual rights to own guns. The people that believe in stricter gun laws think that these laws will cut back on the amount of death caused by firearms. Whereas those who are for individual rights believe that the Second Amendment protects people from stricter gun laws, and they should have the right to own a gun in order to protect themselves from others. Since this topic has become such a pressing issue, researchers have started to look into the relationship between gun laws and deaths caused by firearms. Before starting my research for this topic, like most people, I choose a side based on what I grew up knowing rather than researching to find out what has worked best in the past. After reading multiple sources that discussed the topic of gun laws I do not think that implementing stricter gun laws will lower deaths caused by firearms, therefore, people should have the right to decide whether or not they want to own guns. 

In order to begin my research I first looked for articles that conducted case studies rather than articles that choose a side of the topic to dispute. Logically, it is does not make sense to compare the number of deaths caused by firearms in the past to the number of deaths now because as the population increases so does the number of guns that are produced and the number deaths that occur daily. This makes conducting frequent and new research and case studies essential to determine whether or not gun laws have an effect on deaths caused by firearms. In Frederic Lemieux's article, "Effect of Gun Culture and Firearm Laws on Gun Violence and Mass Shootings in the United States: A Multi-Level Quantitative Analysis", I was able to learn what effects gun laws had on deaths cause by firearms without any bias by examining the information he gathered from his own case study. One of the main issues with this debate is that people never want to look at the facts and instead try to argue their side without any proof. Lemieux conducted micro, meso, and macro level analysis of his research in order to examine what current gun laws and beliefs are on a household, state, and national level. With this type of topic it is important to look outside of the United States and examine what has and has not worked for other countries rather than just look at the United States' history since the United States has had the highest total number of firearm related casualties than any other country (Lemieux 9).

Since America has the highest deaths caused by firearms it would only make sense that we look at other countries current gun laws and compare in order to see what could be the problem here in the United States. In "Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Do They Make Much Difference?" Roger Douglas investigates whether or not there is not enough information to prove that removing fire arms from homes, in Australia, will lower the number of accidental deaths as well as deaths caused by fire arms. By researching the deaths rates of people since the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Douglas concluded that only one of the four types of death were affected by the new Legislation proving that there was not enough insight to lead him to believe that removing firearms lowered the number of accidental deaths in Australia. By looking at this case study we would be able to tell that immediately trying to require strict gun laws after a impactful shooting incident is ineffective. Some people might also agree with Anu Kumar's article, "America's Contradictions on Gun Rights", and think that the gun laws in America are contradicting and hopeless.  

Many people think that simply having stricter gun laws will lower the death rates caused by firearms and will immediately make America a safer place to live, but this is simply not the case. Like Paul Helmke says, "There are no easy answers to the problem of gun violence in the United States. We need to be able to collect data, study options, and explore a wide range of possible changes" and this is the main thing that people forget. We also have to make sure that the sources we are observing are credible and are not falsifying information gathered. In Tomislav Kovandzic's article, "Comment on the Recent Work of Kwon, Scott, Safranski, and Bae: No, Your Evidence Doesn't Prove What You Think It Does!" he argues that a previous article he studied had no statistical information to prove that there was a negative relationship between gun control laws and deaths by firearms in their data set.

The first thing that we fail to realize is that gun themselves are not the cause of death  --  people are. Banning guns and making it harder to obtain a gun will not stop the bad people who are willing to whatever it takes to get what they want. In fact, some people already think the government requires too much of people in order to obtain a concealed weapons permit. By making stricter gun laws the government might deter the morally sound citizens from trying to get the correct gun licensing simply because of how strenuous the process might turn out. It is no secret that many people do not want to put in the time and effort that is required to do something, even if it means not getting something they want. 

While many people only think about gun laws being the source of increase or decrease of deaths caused by firearms they forget about other factors that can play a role in whether or not a person is more likely to kill themselves or others using firearms. In a study conducted by Siegel and his colleges they examine the relationship between life and health factors, gender, race, age, and marital status to the number of deaths caused by firearms. When people start debate over whether or not the gun control laws should be changed they forget that these other factors play a huge role in a person's psychological background. Many of the people responsible for shootings and other deaths caused by firearms medically diagnosed as mentally ill after being tested. 

When a person mentions gun control laws most people automatically think that changing these laws will have an effect on crime rates, though studies show that we might be thinking about the topic in the wrong order. In a study conducted by Moorhouse and Wanner they use data, laws, and history to examine whether gun control laws effect crime rates or vice versa and found:

Because high crime rates are often cited as justifying more stringent gun control laws, high rates may generate political support for gun regulations. This suggests a causal effect running from crime rates to more stringent gun laws. But because both relationships between gun control and crime rates unfold over time, they are not simultaneously determined in the usual econometric sense. For example, crime rates in the early 1990s could be expected, ceteris paribus, to influence the stringency of gun control measures in the late 1990s. In turn, more stringent gun control in the late 1990s could be expected, ceteris paribus, to affect crime rates several years later. Using state-level data, this article provides estimates of these twin relationships between gun control and crime rates (Moorhouse 1).

We should not be focusing our attention on changing our gun laws but rather trying to make an effort to lower the crime rates so that we do not have to worry about making changes to current gun laws  --  which has proven to be a difficult task.  

Those who are pro-Gun believe that the Second Amendment gives them the right to bear arms, however, those who are pro-gun control might disagree. Many people have been looking into the Second Amendment and think that it was intended for military purposes only. In Paul Barrett's article, "Gun Control and the Constitution: Should We Amend the Second Amendment?" he argues that the constitution as a whole should be rewritten in order to fit America's overall current events. This argument can be proven as invalid because even if the Second Amendment was initially intended to protect our military's right to bear arms, we still have to abide by these rules because they are essentially what keeps our country running smoothly. Until the government decides to alter the constitution we as individuals have the right to bear arms and many people will do whatever it takes in order to protect this right. 

The debate of gun control laws is one of those topics in which everyone will never agree with one side or the other. In Nicole Hockley's Ted Talk she discusses why it is important that we focus on the things we can change rather than the things we have no control over. Hockley lost on of her children to in the Sandy Hook shooting and instead of sitting around depressed about her loss she wanted to get her story out to current and future parents in hopes that she can stop and make them think. By sharing her story she hopes to make people realize how critical it is that we focus on teaching future generations about gun safety rather than wasting time arguing over things that can be seen as a "lost cause" and often ends in a stale mate between opposing sides. Like Hockley said, this is something that we can actually change but so many people forget that educating on another is even an option. 

We, as a whole, need to come to the realization that banning guns all together is not going to stop violence, but neither is sitting around and doing nothing to change what is happening now. Banning guns will only make those who are pro-gun unhappy and unwilling to listening to the opposing argument, and on the other hand doing nothing will not make those for stricter gun laws happy either. What we lack in our country is responsibility. The younger generation is responsible for wanting to learn about our history to ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes that have happened in the past. While the government is responsible for protecting the citizens here in the United States. There is no magical solution for lowing the firearm related death rates, however, if we the people come together as one and research information and find common ground we can make change for the better. All we have to do is stop, listen to our counterparts and makes adjustments to the things we can change.

