Term paper on Gun Control

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Gun Control
Why Should We Ban Handguns in the United States Recently in Michigan a six-year-old brought a handgun to school and shot a classmate and killed her. In 1990 there were 23,438 homicides in the United States, 9,923 due to handguns (418). This was one of the points that Nicholas Dixon brings up in hi

Gun Control
Americans are faced with an ever-growing problem of violence. Our streets have become a battleground where the elderly are beaten for their social security checks, where terrified women are viciously attacked and raped. Each day teenage gangsters shoot it out for a patch of turf to sell their illega

Do We Need Tougher Gun Control Laws?

What does the sound of amendment mean? In its entirety it 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." Does this confer an unqualified right to bear arms? Or is it a right conditioned by the clause preceding the statement of right? Does the militia refer to the pe9ople generally, or does it specifically relate to the organized ("well regulated") military bodies of state and national guards and the armed forces?

Gun control is one of many major topics of debate on Capitol Hill these days, but does it get the due attention that it needs? Gun related crimes are a major problem in the United States today. May believe that gun control laws need to become stricter, others believe that gun control does not work and may actually increase the incidence of robbery and other gun related crimes.

Carl T. Bogus and Daniel D. Polsby believe in the opposite views on gun control. Carl T. Bogus argues that even in small amounts, gun control will reduce the number of gun related crimes. Mr. Bogus presents facts suggesting that, along with other demographic factors held nearly the same, there is much less gun related crime in areas that have gun control. Mr. Bogus uses evidence of a (1980-1986) study of Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia to support his opinions and reasons for suggestions that gun control works even on a national level. With Seattle and Vancouver only 140 miles apart these two cities are remarkably alike despite being located on opposite sides of an international border. These two cities being similar in size, median household income, unemployment rate, and racial difference one would expect that the crime rate would also fall close together. Well, not exactly during the seven years of the study, there were two hundred and four homicides in Vancouver and three hundred and eighty-eight in Seattle-an enormous difference for two cities with comparable populations. The murder rate with knives and all other weapons excluding firearms- were virtually identical, but the rate of murders involving guns was five times greater in Seattle. (Carl T. Bogus, "The Strong Case for Gun Control," Summer1992)

What Mr. Bogus tries to show with this study is that it is not the population or any other physical factor that plays into the enormous use of handguns to case crime, but the single law that Vancouver had that Seattle didn't. A gun control law. Vancouver requires a permit for handgun purchases and issues them only to applicants who have a lawful reason to own a handgun and who, after an intensive investigation into ones background are found to have no criminal record and to be sane. The reason of self-defense is not a valid reason either. Those people...