Philosophy 225 (Critical Thinking)
Reflection Paper #2
Gun Control, a Peculiar Reality
Assumption
It’s been in hot debate for
quite some time. The idea is that the banning of fire arms to the nations
civilians is a good idea to reduce violence. The idea is inductive. By banning
guns murder will go down, school shootings will stop, and the number of overall
violence in the country will drop since the civilians don’t have the main
implement of murder in the United States. In theory this idea sounds great, but
in all reality it is nothing more than a reality assumption. Statistics work for,
and against gun control. We should let history be the judge, but most people
tend to listen to statistics. I will do that with reason behind them.
According to gunpolocy.org the
number of guns deaths in the United States in 2011 was around 32,163, note that
19,766 of those where suicides, 851 unintentional deaths, 617 were
justified, and were 11,101 were actual homicides. Now let’s look at the United
Kingdom that has a gun death total of about 146 with 93 of those being suicide,
2 were unintentional,3 were justified, and 28 where homicides. Now the United
Kingdom has strict gun laws in which most of the civilian population is against
them, and most of them don’t own one. So shouldn’t this be good proof that gun
control works? Note many countries in Europe have similar laws and numbers.
Perhaps, but it can be turned on its head; looking at Switzerland’s statistics the number of gun
homicides in 2010 was 40, and the total number of gun suicides was 239 in 2008.
The estimated number of guns owned by the population is 3,400,000 with a 45.7
firearms per 100 people. Switzerland also ranks number three in number of guns
per 100 population world ranking. And according to my father who is a cop, and
a NRA fire arms instructor they openly let civilians own guns with no problem
as they serve as an outstanding militia to as to having a standing army. This
information can be found online, specifically in a report done by Time magazine
site in the world section.
So
wait. If Switzerland can have one of the highest civilian gun counts in the
world, note the United States is number 1, and has a lower gun homicide rate
then the United States gun homicide homicide rate of 2011 with 11101? The
answer is simple. Guns aren’t the problem; there is a third party to all of
this. What is a growing problem in this country that could be a result? If you
guessed drugs then you got it right. And who distributes most of these drugs?
Gangs. We all know how vicious gang violence is, yet despite Mexico banning
guns from the civilian population the county is a blood bath in some regions
due the plague of the drug trade. Here in the United States may not be as bad,
but still let’s take a look.
According
to FBI statistics the total number of gang arrests in 2001 was 3999, in 2009
that number has raised to 9082 then down to 7184 in 2010. That’s a big jump. According
to the 2011 national gang threat assessment under the section of Gang Related
Crime; gangs are responsible to 48% of violent crime in most jurisdictions.
That is also higher in other places. In fact this section of the report has
recorded that some jurisdictions in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois,
Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Texas report that gangs are responsible for at
least 90 percent of crime.
So
what good is banning guns going to do when these gangs already obtain their
weapons through stealing, or the black market? Other countries with strict or
complete gun control haven’t been able to prevent their gangs, and organized
crime from obtaining fire arms, let alone just any criminal in general.
Statistics in my opinion are still no match for history though.
On
July 22nd 2011 a man disguised as a police officer armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle,
and handgun in Norway, note that Norway has some of the strictest gun laws in
the world, killed 69 youth camper on the island of Utøya, after killing 8
others in a car bombing at the executive
government quarter of Norway in Oslo. Despite extremely strict guns laws it
still did nothing to prevent a psycho anti sematic and Marxist killer from
openly attacking his own government and people. Even if he couldn’t legally
obtain the gun he most likely would have obtained it illegally, or just
homemade explosives none the less.
Years
before on September 1st 2004 in Beslan Russia Islamic terrorists
took hostage of 1100 (777 children) hostage in an school using an assortment of
fire arms, including automatics, and a large and elaborate use of
explosives. The three day siege ended
with 380 dead. Even after Russian forces had gained control of the school the
fighting went into the night and even after that perused for more of the
hostage takers continued. The Russian army even sent in tanks it was so bad,
civilians took up weapons to join the fight, and many people were killed simply
in the crossfire between Russian soldiers, and the hostage takers. The details
are chilling, and suggest everyone should read, and learn about this attack.
Despite
strict gun restriction terrorists armed with automatic weapons and explosives
literally turned the town into a literal hell. These terrorists no doubtingly
got their arms from the black market, as most countries don’t allow their
civilians to own fully automatics, and even a country like our own still
requires very hard getting license to obtain them legally as civilians. There
are millions of fire arms on the black market. Terrorists get their AK47s and
RPG’s from somewhere.
It’s
not just terrorists that we need to worry about; there is an image refenced
that explain in the top caption say;
“the experts agree.” Below that are the photos of Adoph Hitler, Fidel Castro,
Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Muammar Qaddafi, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Kim Jung
Il; the bottom caption quotes; “gun
control works.” Historically gun control has resulted in more deaths than all
the wars combined in past 20th century. Hitler murder over 6 million
Jews plus millions of other ethnic groups plus those who opposed him. Joseph
Stalin murdered millions of his own people just to keep in power, and Kim
Jung-Il, well we all know of the things the North Koreans have been doing to
their own people.
Statistics
and history proves that gun control does only one thing. Keep the civilians
from protecting themselves from those who aren’t going to obey the law, and if
worse comes to worse, even the peoples own government may come to get them.
It’s happened before, is still happening, and will continue to happen. This
isn’t propaganda, or an arrogant rant. It’s true facts that I hope may at least
a little bit prevent the elimination of this country’s most important right;
the one amendment that can protect all the rest, and ourselves from those who
would seek to take our lives. We can sit here and give into the lie, or reach
the facts. We should all strive for the truth. There are countless amounts of
information out there; it’s just a matter of taking the time and effort to
learn the statistics and history behind it.
References:
(United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway,
Russia) http://www.gunpolicy.org
Some facts have been gathered from my father who is a Police
Officer, and NRA Fire Arms Instructor. He has diligently studied this topic
even beyond myself, and has also read a book specifically on the Beslan
terrorist attack know as Terror at Beslan by John Giduck.
No comments:
Post a Comment