It is clearly in the interests of children and families to reduce gun violence in the United States. Each day, on an average, 13 children under the age of 19 are killed by gunfire and more are injured. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for youths 10–19 years old. For black males of this age, it’s the No.1 cause of death. Most youth homicides are committed with firearms, especially handguns.
To achieve that goal many states in the US passed laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians with the hope that it will reduce the crime. But unfortunately these laws and regulations do not seem to help as In fact, cities with some of the most stringent gun laws, like New York and Chicago, suffer from some of the highest violent crime rates. Shooting and murder rates in Chicago surged 50% in 2020, and that city recorded the highest number of gun-related homicides on record. Gun-controlled Chicago became the most murderous city in the country.
There are three main reasons why gun control laws don’t work.
1)Criminals don’t obey gun control laws: The assumption of all gun regulations is that if criminals wont be able to purchase a gun at their local gun store they will not have a weapon to commit the crime, the problem with this assumption is that research shows that most criminals don’t buy their own guns rather get them in Illegal underground sales, from friends or family, theft or their victims, so by stopping criminals from buying their own guns we are not really solving the problem.[Tx4A][Tx41]
2)Background Checks Aren’t Effective. Even if criminals did submit to background checks, we’ve seen that these checks aren’t effective at stopping those who intend to use guns to commit crimes. Consider the following scenarios. A person with no criminal history walks into a store to buy a gun they’ll use to commit a crime. A background check most likely won’t stop them. A drug addict lies about their addiction on a federal background check form. Although this individual is committing a federal crime, a background check most likely won’t stop them. A person with serious mental health issues but no history of treatment or institutionalization goes to buy a gun. A background check most likely won’t stop them. [Tx4A]
3)Crime Goes Down When Good Guys Have Guns. The more bureaucracy and regulations we put on buying a gun the less good law obeying citizens will pursue a gun, cause as you know bureaucracy sucks. But the more law obeying citizens who bare arms are crucial for the safety of are streets since a)criminals would be far less likely to commit a crime if they believed their victim might be armed.[Tx4A]
