David Anderson: The U.S. Doesn’t Need More Gun Control- A Refutation View

To gain a better understanding of gun control in general, it is important to research and understand the perspective of anti-gun control advocates and their personal feelings on the matter. The Huffington Post wrote an article on an interview that was conducted with David Anderson. Anderson has been a member of the National Riffles Association (NRA) for over 50 years and is a strong believer in the right to bear arms. He makes multiple claims about why gun control is an ineffective tool to stopping gun violence. I will be refuting three of the claims that he made during his interview. Although his arguments are passionate, there is no true validity behind his statements.

The first topic he discusses are background checks. He claims that they are entirely ineffective. He believes they are not comprehensive enough to be prevent crime and the policies are not enforced correctly throughout the country. Even if his claims were true, it does not mean America should “do away” with them entirely but rather fix the existing problems. While researching information on background checks and analyzing the recent shootings throughout our country, I came across a shocking piece of information. A recent shooting in a Texas church has tragically left 26 people dead. This heinous crime was committed by a man named Devin Patrick Kelly. To further understand how gun control plays a role in this situation I began to research more about Devin Patrick Kelly himself. It turns out he was not eligible to purchase the assault rifle he used in this shooting. He was court-martialed by the Air Force in 2012. Also, he served a year in prison and received a bad conduct discharge in 2014 for assault on his spouse and their child.  While Anderson claims that background checks are ineffective, it is clear that a more extensive check for Kelly could have prevented this shooting. With stricter and more clear regulations, 26 people may have still been alive today. It is not the background check that is ineffective but rather the way in which its enforced. We need more extensive regulations when purchasing weapons. Something as simple as a background check could have saved 26 people.

The second argument that he makes is in regard to gun free zones. A gun free zone is when a certain location bans the concealment and use of guns. He claims that these zones ineffective as well. He believes the best way to stop gun violence is by having more presence of guns around, rather than banning them. If a shooter has a high chance of being shot and killed by officials, Anderson claims it will deter him/her from committing the crime. This argument is not strong. There are ways to execute mass shootings inwhich you do not have to be in the presence of anyone. Stephen Paddock, the shooter in Las Vegas, was alone in a private room and killed 59 people. With his right to have a military style weapon now shooters can commit these crimes from a large distance and not worry about the presence of anyone let alone officials with guns. Anderson does not seem to understand that you can’t fight guns with more guns. The shooters will find a way to commit these evil crimes no matter how many guns you give to people. The simple fact that Paddock was able to purchase his guns is the sole cause of this shooting, and no armed presence would have stopped him.

Depiction of the distance from Paddock’s room to concert venue

His last claim states that as citizens we have the right to bear arms in terms of self defense. It is important to keep our country safe and people should have the right to protect themselves if need be, but there are other ways. Protection from a dangerous situation does not have to result in death. First, there are various non-lethal weapons that can aid in self-defense but won’t result in death. Opposed to guns, people can own, pepper spray, Tasers, stun guns, self-defense alarms and whistles or even keychain weapons. All of these products can protect citizens without needing a gun. Conclusively, in terms of owning a gun for self-defense, it is not the only option. Secondly, there are instances in which people use a gun in “self-defense” when they are not required to which can result in an unnecessary and fatal accident. This brings me to the popular incident with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Zimmerman felt in danger and wished to protect his neighborhood from crime. He mistakenly viewed Martin as a threat to his safety and shot and killed him. Perhaps Zimmerman used a stun gun instead and waited for police to arrive, Martin would be alive today and Zimmerman’s neighborhood would remain safe. Guns are fatal and the actions committed behind a gun are irreversible.

Although Anderson does make various arguments against gun control, each argument has a refutation with clear evidence. The debate for or against gun control has been heated and passionate for years but it is important to look at facts rather than personal opinion. Anderson is admittedly passionate about guns for personal reasons such as hunting and sport therefore his arguments are not entirely valid.

Why We Don’t Need Gun Control-Refutation View

Gun control is a highly controversial topic. When discussing the opposing sides, either pro or anti, the conversation can become heated. While researching anti-gun control arguments to try and better understand that point of view, I stumbled across a blog written by Justin A Perry. He makes three main points that I would like to discuss within this post. His stance is clear, anti-gun control and he believes the legalization of guns will do nothing to create a safer and more civilized society.

The first point that he makes is, people cannot be deprived of gun rights because it aids their source of food and will decrease their quality of life. Although many people do hunt to kill animals for consumption, we are not an underdeveloped country in which this is the main source of survival. A study conducted by Responsive Management, shows that over 60% of hunters hunt for sport, bonding, trophy or nature as opposed to the approximate 30% of people who hunt for meat. Also, people who hunt for meat do not claim that this is there one and only source of survival and without it they would die. While many people enjoy freshly hunted meat, it is not a matter of life or death but rather preference.

His second argument claims that just because things are illegal, it doesn’t mean they cannot be obtained. He puts this into the perspective of drugs. Of course, LSD, Cocaine and Heroin are all illegal drugs but can unfortunately be found on the streets of the United States. He then draws the comparison that guns will be found on the streets even if they are illegal. I believe this argument is weak. The drugs he listed above are highly addictive after just one use. If they were legal we would have a much larger epidemic of drugs than we currently do. Making drugs illegal acts as a deterrent. Although it may be possible to find it on the streets, because it is banned, a large number of people abstain from using. This relates to guns as well. If a gun is legal, it is more likely to be used by every day people but once it becomes illegal it will deter the general public from purchasing it. Deterrence theory relates to three concepts, swiftness, severeness and certainty. If anti-gun laws are written clearly and there is strong enforcement of those laws, many citizens will become deterred. This will decrease the overall amount of people who physically own guns. Thus in turn, decreasing the potential for gun violence.

His third argument claims that, guns are not unsafe in households. The only way for a child to get into possession of a gun is by explicitly giving them access or teach them about the gun itself. This argument is extremely false. I recently watched a documentary called, Bully. It follows the lives of children who experience hardships at school. One girl, Ja’meye, was bullied so much that she found her mothers gun and brought it onto the school bus. She then attempted to shoot passengers but was luckily stopped in time. She now is in juvenile detention and will face most of her childhood behind bars. Her mother in the documentary claims she hid the gun and never spoke about the gun itself, where it was or how to operate it. This goes to show that Perry’s argument is not true. Just because we are not verbally teaching our kids about guns, their curious minds can get them into trouble. Children, in compromising situations, may turn to gun violence just like Ja’meye. The pure fact that her mother had that gun is what put Ja’meye behind bars and stripped her of her childhood. We are putting these weapons in front of our youth and presenting the opportunity to commit an act of violence.

Perry’s aggressive stance against gun control may excite others who agree with him but it is important to look at the facts of his arguments. With careful research and consideration it is clear that the anti-gun control claims are protecting a small group of people, those who enjoy guns, and harming the rest of the population. The presence of mass shootings and gun violence has gone too far. We need stricter laws relating to the ownership of guns.

We Don’t Need the 2nd Amendment — We Need a Real Debate About Guns

Unfortunately, every single time there is a tragic shooting in our country, anti gun control advocates resort to our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms as their most powerful tool in the debate against gun control. This article written by Timothy William Waters explains how the 2nd Amendment ends all discussion on the issue. He states that he heard an expert close a debate by shouting, “Too bad, it’s in the Constitution!” Through explanation and historical evidence, Waters explains that because of the serious disagreement about whether guns protect liberty or threaten it, Americans should be focusing on our responsibility to consider not just what the Constitution says, but what it should say regarding gun control. He claims that we do not need an amendment protecting or prohibiting guns, we just need the Constitution to be indifferent, so it allows for a proper debate in which the issues are truly spoken about, and not just our 2nd Amendment right.  Waters states, “There are good reasons to limit guns, and to have them. But the 2nd Amendment isn’t one of those reasons.”

A Mass Shooting in Texas and False Arguments Against Gun Control

In the light of recent events that occurred in Sutherland Spring, Texas, it is important now more than ever to discuss the topic of gun control. In particular I would like to discuss not just the topic of gun control, but the idea of hope when it pertains to these horrific events. Hope is a thing that can be looked at in a variety of ways, depending on a person’s outlook in life. For instance, when referring to one of the greatest movies of all time, Shawshank Redemption, the two main characters, Andy and Red, have different views on this idea of hope. On one hand, you have Red who states, “hope is a dangerous thing my friend, it can kill a man”. However, on the other hand, you have Andy stating, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies”. That is what I am arguing here today, that hope is good thing. Hope can be the best of things when it comes to dealing with events such as Texas or Las Vegas.

 

According to a recent article published in The New Yorker, “There is never a time to give away to hopelessness”. Adam Gopnik is able to use this concept of hope to express to his readers the importance of not giving up. He stresses the importance of always believing there is light at the end of the tunnel. In other words, Gopnik wants to assure his readers and anyone else for that matter that although we have seen numerous mass shootings over the past several years, each one helps us get closer to our end goal. Gopnik states, “with every public crisis, the truth matters and clarifies and brings light, even when the light can’t immediately show a better path forward”.

 

In addition, Gopnik goes more into depth regarding the difficulty of defeating the gun lobby. However, he proposes a series of myths that are used by the lobby to help its cause. These myths range from opinions such as if military style weapons are banned, there would be no effect to the science regarding gun violence being inconclusive. However, Gopnik uses this article to refute those opinions and affirm the beliefs regarding gun control in our nation. For instance, if military style weapons are banned, there would be an effect. It would act as a step forward and every step forward clears the way for more steps to be taken. In other words, the banning of these military style weapons would act as one step and would lead to other steps being taken to control gun violence. In terms of the social science being inconclusive, Gopnik argues against that particular opinion, stating, “The results are in. We really do know. Now we only have to do”. This is a central idea of Gopnik’s article.

 

This idea of ‘do’ is very relatable to the concept of hope. In fact, in my opinion, they work together. They build off one another. If a person is more hopeful that a particular issue will get resolved, they are going to be more active to help the process reach its end result. In other words, individuals, such as myself, who care about this issue of gun control and are hopeful about the future of our country, will do more things to make sure our current situation is improved. For instance, referring to a quote by the past President Barack Obama, “Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it”. This is what more of our country needs to believe in. We need to spread the word that every individual should not just be hopeful about our nation’s future, but to take that hope and turn it into action.

I Used to Think Gun Control Was the Answer: My Research Told Me Otherwise- A Refutation View

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.

America Used to Be Good at Gun Control. What Happened?

There has been another spark in the gun control debates in light of the recent events that occurred in Las Vegas. We found an article that discusses the changes of gun control and how it has evolved over time, maybe for the worse.

Dating back to the 1930’s, fully automatic weapons were banned or had extremely strict regulations in regards to obtaining them. Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to keep these dangerous weapons under federal control. As time went on, gun laws have changed and now vary throughout states. There are different requirements to obtain and carry a gun in each state that diminishes the efforts of former presidents to keep guns federally controlled.

It can be argued that as a country, we cannot agree on sensible gun regulations, but what will change it? The article questions if anything will spark change for gun laws. There have been multiple mass shootings throughout the past couple of years, ranging from Sandy Hook to Orlando, to current day Las Vegas. When will it be enough for government to realize, enough is enough?

 

A Criminologist’s Case Against Gun Control: A Refutation View

Although there are many pro gun control media outlets, this article speaks from the anti-gun control perspective. Changing the country’s views to gun violence and gun control is not an easy task. With so many misunderstandings about the topic, it becomes more and more difficult to influence an individual’s decision. For instance, what people tend to not realize is that this country has actually seen a remarkable decrease in gun violence and gun related crimes since 1990. In addition, most of these gun related crimes tend to be associated with suicide attempts and not murders. Another misconception deals with gun related policy and its effectiveness. For instance, the majority of American citizens believe creating an effective policy to reduce gun control in our country is simple. However, what they tend to forget is the difficulty of agreeing on an initiative that is not only implementable, but effective and enforceable as well.

In regards to the different types of weapons that are associated with gun violence, the American public wants banned. American citizens find the need to only ban assault weapons, because they are believed to be ‘more dangerous’. What the majority of American citizens don’t realize is that assault weapons don’t shoot more bullets, they are not more powerful, and they do not shoot faster than other weapons. If we ban assault weapons, there is still a whole other market of non-assault weapons that are just as powerful and dangerous.

One of the big questions associated with gun control and gun violence is the possible introduction of foreign policies, such as UK and Australian policies, in America. Whether it is the restriction of private ownership of guns like they have in the UK, or the gun buyback program similar to the one they have in Australia, both policies would be unsuccessful in America. This is because one, we have a Constitution allowing our citizens to exercise certain rights, and two, people do not wish to sell their guns to the government.

Lastly, a big debate pertaining to gun violence and gun control is about enforcing strict policy in terms of giving guns to the mentally ill. In terms of the definition, the number of people considered mentally ill is slightly small due to the government having a difficult time getting the proper mental health records of certain individuals. This is because the mental health treatment community strongly opposes any types of control on this particular population. That is why whenever the government attempts to increase the aggressiveness of gun control laws for the mentally ill, there is a large opposition.