Are guns truly bad for society? Without guns, no one would get hurt or killed, right? Wrong. The hard truth is that with all the technology available now-a-days there are endless amounts of weapons criminals can use to harm the innocent civilians. Also, there are endless amounts of ways for someone to die that does not involve a gun. My purpose behind this research is to show people that guns are not our enemy, and, in fact, they can be useful to us. The American population is generalizing that guns are bad and should be banned in the United States. The problem with that assumption is, it takes a human being to pull the trigger, the gun will not shoot by itself just like a pit-bull is not a bad dog until the owner trains it to be one. Not all guns are used to kill people, and usually the guns that are used were not acquired or purchased legally in America. The only people that would be affected if a law were to be put in place to ban the sale, use, or production of guns are the American citizens that follow the law and do not misuse their gun. Citizens like my father, who enjoys going hunting with his sons would no longer be allowed to do that. Also, if a shooting were to happen, what would people do for protection? How would you protect yourself from robbers or any criminal for that matter? You could not would be the answer.

Most people think that if you ban guns than less guns means less gun crime. It sounds good until you look at some of the facts pertaining to areas that have tried this already in the United States. Washington D.C. put a ban on handguns around 1980 but then released that ban because that saw a dramatic increase in gun violence and the murder rate (Best Argument for Gun Control 2:28). So, I guess less guns do not mean less violence. Citizens need a way of protection, not everyone can always wait for the police to arrive on scene because sometimes it is just too late when they get there. In fact, in Kennesaw Georgia they passed a law requiring every household to have a gun, but was there a huge increase in the gun crime rate? (2:50). No there was a decrease in reported crime in the Kennesaw area. If you look at other countries that have banned guns the numbers do not get any better for their argument. Australia banned guns in 1997 and promised their citizens that it would ensure their safety and decrease the gun violence around the country. Boy, were they wrong. Australia saw a 69% increase in armed robberies, a 28% increase in assaults with guns, a 19% increase in gun murders, and a 21% increase in home invasions (4:32). I do not know about you but that does not give me any confidence that banning guns will solve any problems, in fact, it would create and cause a lot more problems. Since the government ordered a ban on guns in the whole country, criminals knew that they were the only civilians with guns and could inflict or cause a lot more damage now because no one could stop them. The increase in home invasions is a direct correlation to that because the criminals knew no one had any source of protection against them. They are no longer threatened or scared to break into someone’s home because the criminal has a firearm, while they know the law-abiding citizen does not. In the case of the shootings on school grounds, we are giving the shooter an easy way to massacre tons of people because they are gun free zones. Joe Biggs also brought up this point, and asked former president Obama to give up his guns in the secret service because if guns are the issue why does he need them? (Fight for Your Freedoms 3:45). At Virginia Tech students argued that multiple lives could have been saved if someone had a firearm on them. These criminals seek out these zones because they know it is a gun free zone so no one can stop them if they do have a gun, “Either that, or mad people try massacres everywhere, and they never turn into massacres because some law-abiding citizen holding a gun, ends the madness” (7:50). As it turns out, less guns do not correlate to less gun violence because the innocent people are left without protection. 

Some people argue that gun legislation should be different for certain areas around the country. As Carl Bogus stated, “the fifty metropolitan statistical areas with one million or more people comprise only a small fraction of the nation’s land mass but include about 58% of the nation’s population and also suffer a disproportionate amount of the nation’s gun violence” (12). Most of the gun violence occurs in the major cities around the United States, and most of the people that want to keep their gun rights live outside of the city and in the countryside. If there was a way to separate the gun laws between the two areas, I believe our country would come to an agreement on what kind of gun laws should be put in place. It is also worth noting that, “only 29% of urban residents own a gun while 56% of rural residents do so” (Blocher 15). These citizens in the rural areas have more opportunities to use their guns in a safe and legal way. These citizens use the guns for hunting, recreational shooting or target shooting, self-defense against buglers or wild animals, and for protecting their farm animals against predators. (Bogus 54). Instead of making a country wide ban on guns, the government should focus its’ gun control on major cities where gun violence is a lot more likely to occur because of the masses of people that live in such a small and condensed area. Most of the people that want gun control live in these areas too so it only makes sense to put stricter gun control in the urban areas, “One recent study found that while 56% of urban residents favored stricter gun control, only 34% of rural residents did...” (Blocher 22). The government should implement stricter gun control inside major cities, because that is where there is more gun crime and where people want the stronger gun control. If the government could determine where the city limits start and stop, then the rural areas would be happy because they are not losing their guns, and the urban areas would be happy because they would feel safer. 

Criminals love gun control. You know why? It is because they do not purchase their guns legally. By enforcing stricter gun control, it will only affect the citizens that do not misuse their gun nor do they purchase a weapon illegally. Besides, the United States already has a strong system in place to prevent criminals from purchasing guns. While gun laws my change a little from state to state, there are similarities between the laws. All states required a background check, gun license, minimum age for purchasing a gun, and a clean legal record before a person can purchase a gun (Buying a Gun 1). The problem here is not with the gun control laws, it is with the protection of mental health records. For example, the shooter at Virginia Tech had been admitted into a mental health clinic before he purchased his firearms, but it did not show up on the background check because that type of information is protected and not released. The owner of the store did not see anything wrong with the man so he sold him the guns not knowing that the buyer was unstable and had been admitted to a mental health clinic. If any laws should be changed, it should be that gun sellers should be able to access and see if the buyer has any prior problems about their mental health status. I am not saying that the seller should be able to look at their records and see their whole life story, but they should at least be able to see if the buyer is mentally stable enough to buy a gun. As we all know a gun does not fire by itself, so we should be more concerned about if the person purchasing the gun is mentally stable. Even though the student at Virginia Tech go around these laws, he still could have been stopped if it was not a gun free zone. All the big massacres happen in gun free zones, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Oregon college, the movie theatre shooting, etc. It is because the criminals know they can just walk in and start shooting tons of people and those people have no self-defense. If people thought that guns were truly the answer for all these shootings, then guns sales would not sky rocket up after every mass shooting (Fight for Your Freedoms 4:40). The government is the ones saying that guns are the problem, not the American people (4:05). They push for tighter gun control laws after every mass shooting, yet former president Obama gave guns to people connected with ISIS (4:20). The big government officials are not worried about gun free zones, because that does not apply to them. They always have their secret service or some form of protection so if a person were to try and start a mass shooting, they would have protection but no one else would. As much as they want you to think they are for stronger gun control, I do not believe Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton would give up their secret service detail because they want protection from criminals, but they do not want you to have the same protection. Even if, by some chance, guns were taken away from the citizens, that does no good. The reason being, criminals do not follow the law, that is why they are criminals. Therefore, by taking away guns the problem will only get worse and worse because the bad people will have the guns and the law-abiding citizens will not, leaving them hopeless just like people in gun free zones. 

After the Sandy Hook tragedy thousands of people were outraged, calling for stricter gun control. Ellen Graces Jones of the Huffington Post, who is not a fan of guns, had some interesting things to say, “If stricter gun control was the solution then cities with stricter gun legislation would be the safest, right? Wrong… Chicago boasts some of the USA’s most draconian gun laws but 10 people were shot in Chicago on Friday alone. It’s considered ‘the deadliest global city’ and the murder rate is 25% higher than last year” (4). Some other facts include when the United Kingdom outlawed guns, within six years the gun crime more than doubled and by 2009, gun crime rose by 89% while gun murders rose by 19% and armed robberies by 69% (6). As you can see, banning guns will not help matters, and guns will still be prevalent in the country, just in the wrong hands. Ellen Jones also states, “Prohibition; in whatever form, does not work. It didn’t work for alcohol, it certainly doesn’t work for drugs and as evidence shows, will not work for guns either” (8). Weather it is banning alcohol, drugs, or guns, there are multiple studies that prove the problem will only get worse if you ban such objects. People always want what they cannot have and criminals will always find a way to obtain such objects. England tried banning all private possession of handguns and as reported by James Wilson, “In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply” (11). James Wilson also mentioned areas where a shooter thought it was a gun free zone but someone had a gun and stopped them, “In one Mississippi high school, an armed administrator apprehended a school shooter” (10). There was also another shooting in a Pennsylvania high school, “…an armed merchant prevented further deaths” (10). That begs the question, would a teacher armed with a firearm have been able to stop the Virginia Tech shooter or lower the amount of deaths? No one will know for sure, but the odds would be in their favor. Not only do guns protect us from massacre shootings, but they also protect us from foreign countries invading the United States. Joshua Healy of INews Network explains, “Isoroku Yamamato, Japan’s commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, is often credited with saying “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass” (11). If we banned guns back then, Japan might have attacked the heart of the United States instead of bombing Pearl Harbor, but they did not because they knew they could not get far enough to do much damage before they were all killed. Our military does a wonderful job protecting us, but you cannot always relay on them, just like you cannot always relay on the police to protect you in a crisis. The police have a protocol to abide by, but you do not when you are trying to save your life from a shooter. Why would you want to leave your life in the hands of others when you could protect yourself? Another fact, “98.98% of the guns legally obtained in America are not used in crimes” (13) which proves the point that criminals will obtain guns illegally like they are now if guns are banned. So, if guns are going to be used illegally in crimes and shootings, should you not be able to protect yourself with a gun? 

So, would you still feel safer in the United States if all guns were banned and only people in the military or part of the police force could legally own one? I know I would not, because as previously stated, normally the only people that wrongfully use guns are the same people who illegally purchase guns. Laws have already been put in place to try and restrict criminals from buying them, so implementing more laws will do no good if people are not following them to begin with. Also, it is very hard for the seller to determine if a purchaser is mentally stable enough to buy a gun due to the laws protecting individual’s mental health conditions. Essentially, it all comes down to how that person uses the gun. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooting, all the precautionary laws were in place to prevent that event, but it occurred anyways because the shooter did not follow the law when purchasing his gun. As for the columbine shooting, those two children were not even old enough to purchase a gun but they still gained access to the guns. I am proposing that all assault weapons should only be allowed at a shooting range where civilians can go shoot it for as long as they want to, but they cannot leave the facility with the gun. Assault weapons are used for nothing but killing, but there are other guns that have a recreational purpose such as: hand guns, shotguns, etc. The big problem is in major cities, not the rural areas of the country, so if any legislation were to be put in place the focus should be in cities where the population is the highest and so is the crime rate. If America banned all guns from civilians it would make us very vulnerable to the rest of the world. Not only that, but all the criminals who illegally got their guns would still possess them so the problem would only get worse as facts have proven. I would rather have a gun to protect myself against some lunatic trying to murder innocent people than have no gun and be killed by that lunatic. The police cannot be everywhere at once. Before deciding which side, you are for, ask yourself this, would you want your child or a facility member to have a gun if a shooter came into their school? Like any good parent would answer, yes, you would because nobody wants to lose their family member, especially their child. 
