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Just about every time a criminal commits a crime using a gun, there are politicians and members of the media who clamor for gun control. Gun control is neither a reasonable nor rational response to crime, and here is why:
1. There is a much stronger correlation between car ownership and car related killings, than there is between gun ownership and gun related killings.
Between 100 million and 150 millions Americans have a gun, and there are about 10 thousand murders committed using guns. Compare this with cars, where at least 200 million Americans have access to cars and cause 50 thousand (ten times as many!) deaths each year. Many of these car related deaths are entirely preventable, being caused by drunk or reckless driving, or being the result of substandard safety equipment in older cars. If we applied the same logic to cars that gun control advocates apply to guns, then we should have severe restrictions on the mere ownership of a car.
2. Most of these 10 thousand or so murders were committed by people with a criminal record who are prohibited from owning guns already. These criminals weren’t deterred by laws that make it a felony to commit murder, or that make it a felony for them to possess a gun due to their criminal record. Further laws will only serve to disarm the law abiding citizens they prey upon.
3. Banning a constitutionally protected item, which allows the physically weak to defend themselves from the physically strong, is misguided and contrary to the principles upon which the United States was founded.
Banning guns leaves the crime victims defenseless, and the criminals who want guns are able to import them just as they import drugs and other contraband. This can be seen in the UK, which enacted strict gun control laws, and then suffered a major increase in crime. This is because the criminal who are willing to risk the jail sentence that they would get for robbery or murder certainly aren’t afraid of a much lesser sentence for possession of gun. The law abiding citizens who have no criminal record don’t even want speeding tickets, much less to be arrested and charged with a crime, and will therefore follow the gun ban laws. The result is that criminals can use their black market guns to attack a law abiding citizen, confident in the knowledge that the citizen will not have a gun with which to defend himself or herself.
Clearly, there is not a strong correlation between gun ownership and killings involving guns. Indeed by the logic of gun control supporters, it would make more sense to ban cars than guns, since car ownership is more strongly correlated with death than gun ownership. Perhaps more importantly, these killings are committed by criminals who would (and do) just ignore the law anyway. This means that gun control laws will, by definition, only disarm the law abiding citizens who should be allowed to own guns to defend themselves.
