In opposition to the enforcement of more aggressive gun control, Leah Libresco, a statistician and former news writer of FiveThiryEight, conducted research on reasons for deaths in America. She analyzed 33,000 lives ended by guns each year and concluded that the best way to prevent these deaths is through interventions. She presented her findings in the article, ‘I Used to Think Gun Control Was the Answer: My Research Told Me Otherwise.’
“The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.”
She continued to analyze these deaths and uses data to support her statements. She mentions that, anually, two thirds of gun related deaths in the United States are suicides and argues that no restriction on guns will make it meaningfully harder for people to use them. She then proceeds to discuss the next largest set of gun deaths. Statistics show, 1 in 5 young men between the ages of 15 and 34 are killed in homicides. She argues that those men were most likely to die at the hands of other young men anyway. She says that their
death would most likely be related to gangs or another kinds of street violence. This argument is contradictory in itself. The most popular way in which gang members commit homicides is via gun. She states these young men are doing to die “anyway”, but the only way to make that statement sound logical would be to prove they are dying from natural causes or other non- gun related issues. She is negating her own argument by basically saying, “they are likely to die by a gun because they are dying by a gun.” Which simply makes no sense.
After collecting her data to support anti-gun control, Libresco concluded that more tailored interventions were the answer to less shootings, not stricter gun control. She explained that potential suicide victims, women experience domestic abusive, and kids who are approached by danger in the streets are all in danger of guns. However, they require specialized protection in which gun control cannot protect them. She insinuates that older men, who make up the largest share of gun suicides, do not need gun control to prevent their death. Rather, they need better access to mental health counselors who could care for them and get them help. She is deflecting the issue of gun control and blaming it on mental health, as well as assuming that these men need to be cared for to eliminate the risk of death. Although this statement can be supported, it is ignorant to assume more care is the way to protect people from using a gun to kill themselves. She is describing a utopia that is not obtainable. If everyone could be cured of mental illness by 
more care, it would have happened by now and less people would commit suicide. She also claims that in order to protect women in danger of specific men, they need to be prioritized by the police, who can enforce restraining orders and restrict these men from buying and owning guns. She argues that men at risk of violence need to be identified before they become violent need to be connected to mentors to help them mentally. This is another faulty argument. As research shows, women in violent and abusive relationships refrain from seeking help from authorities due to fear. It is highly unlikely these women will turn in their spouse, get his gun taken away, and continue or cease being in a relationship. This is another unrealistic solution to end gun violence.
Libresco’s argument for anti-gun control and her solutions to the issue would not be effective in the real world. It is unrealistic to believe that moral support alone is the solution to limiting deaths involving weapons. Policeman cannot prioritize women who are potential victims of assault when there are a lot of other active crimes they need to attend to. It is also unfeasible to identify every male that could be a potential offender before they commit a crime. We would have to be able to predict the future in order for her argument to work. There are many pros and cons to the enforcement of gun control, however, the data and explanation that Libresco covered may have changed her opinion, but definitely did not change mine.
The Importance of Gun Control 