Gun control is a set of laws designed to regulate the sale and use of guns.
Examples of gun control measures include licenses being required to buy and sell guns,
and the use of background checks,
or even just getting rid of guns completely.
In the United States gun control is a hotly debated topic, due to how pervasive gun ownership
is comapered to other western countries, and how high gun violence is, with proponents
of gun control arguing that the two are linked.
I’ll spend half of this video talking about the pros of gun control and the hother half
on the cons, whilst allowing for each argument to receive a rebuttal.
The main argument in favour of gun control supposes that higher levels of gun ownership
cause higher levels of gun violence.
The US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, with roughly 400 million guns
in the country, or 120 guns per 100 people, as well as the 28th highest rate of violent
gun death per 100,000 at 4.43, comapred to other western countries like the UK where
the rate is 0.06 Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The argument that flows from this, is that any number of restrictive measures such as
those seen in other western countries, would reduce this number of deaths.
In response, opponents of gun control argue that gun violence and gun ownership are not
correlated.
They point to coutnries like Switzerland and Canada which have high levels of gun ownership
yet much lower levels of gun violence such as suicides and murder.
Furthermore, opponents of gun control point to America’s pecular demographic nature
being at fault for its high level of gun violence. Gun violence in America is much higher in
inner city areas than rural places, for example compare the murder rate of 55 per 100,000
in Baltimore to
1 in Vermont, a state with higher levels of gun ownership.
The argument that thus follows is that tackling poverty and inner city crime would be more
beneficial for reducing gun violence than gun control.
However one could equally argue that Canada and Switzerland rate of gun ownership is nowhere
near as high as that of US’s, both countries have about 30 firearms per 100 people, comapred
to 120 in the US.
Furthermore Proponents of gun control point to not just the human cost of higher gun violence,
but the financial burden of the US’s healthcare system having to fork out trillions every
year to treat people with gunshot wounds.
With money and lives being wasted, time is also wasted due to the cylical nature of the
gun debate in America, a debate that becomes newsworthy whenever a mass shooting occurs,
before fading into obscurity again. Again however, opponents of gun control argue
that mass shootings only represent a tiny fraction of all violent gun deaths, and that
banning weapons like assult rifles is futile when most shootings occur with handguns.
now for the other side
The main argument opponents of gun control use references the second amendment of the
US constituion that reads ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of
a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed’
to many americans the second amendment represents not just the right to self defense, but to
privacy, property, and freedom from governmental tyranny and almost a certain equality with
the state. Thus, to these Americans, any form of gun
control represents a reduction in their individual freedom to keep and bear arms.
However, it is important to note that this interpretation of the second amendment is
not universally agreed upon.
Some stipulate that the second amendment only entitles a militia, an army to bear arms,
proponents of gun control can point to the DC vs Heller supreme court decision to back
this up.
DC vs Heller was the first supreme court decision to represent the right to bear arms as an
individual right, beforehand it had been seen more collectively, talk of american citizens
became the american citizen in DC vs Heller.
Furthermore the idea that any element of gun control risks trammeling American freedom
can be contradicted by looking at any number of gun control restrictions that have been
put in place throughout American history for example during the mafia period,
in the gun control act of 1968,
and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994.
However opponents of gun control continue to uphold their constitutional right to keep
and bear arms, with emphasis on how it prevents crimes and how it improves feelings of individual
safety, for example amongst women,
as well as the argument that criminals will find a way to get guns if ordinary citizens
are dispossed of their firearms.
Overall it is clear that proponents of gun control think that America’s higher level
of gun ownership is at fault for its higher rates of gun violence.
Thus, they believe that by restricting gun ownership, it would prevent criminals and
mentally ill people from getting guns, reducing rates of suicide and murder.
Opponents of gun control uphold their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, but it seems
that the debate essentially boils down to the premise that higher gun ownership causes
higher gun violence.
Opponnents of gun control argue that higher gun ownership prevents a lot more crimes than
it causes and that America’s gun problem is more an inner city poverty related problem,
and that dipossessing ordinary americans of gun would put them at the whim of these types
of gangs and criminals.
That’s the gun control debate.
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