Why gun control is good

But as a fellow gun owner, that law is in effect at least in Illinois there is a 72 hour waiting period after buying any firearm. Long gun, or pistol. And as far as buying a fully automatic weapon, they are illegal for any us citizen to own.

But as stated in the article there will be away around all of these so called laws. Last i new drugs were illegal in the united states but some how people find away to get these illegal drugs.

But for some reason when a car accident happens it does not get blamed on the car not once. Because the car can not operate by its self. There has to be a person controlling the car. Just as a firearm can not operate itself there has to be a person that puts the ammunition in the gun and still it will not fire alone.

It still needs a person to pull the trigger. And still it mat or may not hit anything. It does also need a person to aim the firearm at a target and pull the trigger. To even hit what is meant to be demolished. Growing up around weapons and raising my children around weapons. Its always a rule you do not point a firearm at something that you do not want demolished or dead.

Then there is the safety on the firearm, it was always said to me that when you look at the safety that if its red its dead, so keep the safety on until you are positive you want to take that life that you have taken it upon yourself to point that firearm at. Close Menu. The Current Wave. The Current Wave We'll get it first, but first we'll get it right.

Submit Search. Opinion Why we need more gun control in the US. What's your favorite Christmas song? La Salle Academy. Navigate Left. Navigate Right. There is broad partisan agreement on some gun policy proposals, but most are politically divisive, the April survey found. Majorities in both parties also oppose allowing people to carry concealed firearms without a permit. Other proposals bring out stark partisan rifts. Gun ownership is closely linked with views on gun policies.

This is true even among gun owners and non-owners within the same political party, according to the April Center survey. Among Republicans, gun owners are generally less likely than non-owners to favor policies that restrict access to guns. Democratic non-gun owners are generally the most likely to favor restrictions. There are similar-sized gaps among Republicans who own guns and those who do not on banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. Among Democrats, there are modest gaps on gun policies by gun ownership.

For instance, while majorities of Democratic gun owners and non-owners both favor banning assault-style weapons and banning high-capacity magazines, Democratic gun owners are about 20 percentage points less likely to say this.

Americans in rural areas typically favor more expansive gun access, while Americans in urban places prefer more restrictive policies, according to the April survey.

Even though rural areas tend to be more Republican and urban communities more Democratic , this pattern holds true even within each political party. With no apparent consensus, motivated reasoning can pave the way to the nullification of opposing arguments in favor of personal opinions and ideological stances. For gun owners, even if it is acknowledged that on average successful DGU is much less likely than a homicide or suicide in the home, not having a gun at all translates to zero chance of self-preservation, which are intolerable odds.

The bottom line is that when gun owners believe that owning a gun will make them feel safer, little else may matter. Curiously however, there is conflicting evidence that gun ownership actually decreases fears of victimization Hauser and Kleck, ; Dowd-Arrow et al. A psychological model of the polarized gun debate in America would ideally compare those for or against gun control legislation. However, research to date has instead focused mainly on differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, which has several limitations.

Gun ownership and non-ownership are therefore dynamic states that may not reflect static ideology. With existing research heavily reliant on comparing gun owners to non-gun owners, a psychological model of gun attitudes in the US will have limited utility if it relies solely on gun owner stereotypes based on their most frequent demographic characteristics.

Just so, looking more closely at the diversity of gun owners can reveal important details beyond the kinds of stereotypes that are often used to frame political debates. Foremost, it must be recognized that not all gun owners are conservative white men with racist attitudes.

For example, those with low levels of gun empowerment were more likely to be female and to own long guns for recreational purposes such as hunting and collecting. Other research has shown that the motivations to own a gun, and the degree to which gun ownership is related to fear and the desire for self-protection, also varies according to the type of gun Stroebe et al.

Owning guns, owning specific types of guns e. A study reported that new gun owners were younger and more likely to identify as liberal than long-standing gun owners Wertz et al. Although Kalesan et al. It would also be a mistake to equate gun ownership with opposition to gun legislation reform or vice-versa. Although some evidence supports a strong association Wolpert and Gimpel, , more recent studies suggest important exceptions to the rule.

Women tend to be more likely than men to support gun control, even when they are gun owners themselves Kahan and Braman, ; Mencken and Froese, Older age 70—79 Americans likewise have some of the highest rates of gun ownership, but also the highest rates of support for gun control Pederson et al.

According to a survey, the majority of the US public also opposes carrying firearms in public spaces with most gun owners opposing public carry in schools, college campuses, places of worship, bars, and sports stadiums Wolfson et al. Despite broad public support for gun legislation reform however, it is important to recognize that the threat of gun restrictions is an important driver of gun acquisition Wallace, ; Aisch and Keller, As a result, proposals to restrict gun ownership boosted gun sales considerably under the Obama administration Depetris-Chauvin, , whereas gun companies like Remington and United Sporting Companies have since filed for bankruptcy under the Trump administration.

Developing a psychological understanding of attitudes towards guns and gun control legislation in the US that accounts for underlying emotions, motivated reasoning, and individual variation must avoid the easy trap of pathologizing gun owners and dismissing their fears as irrational. Although the research on fear and gun ownership summarized above implies that non-gun owners are unconcerned about victimization, a closer look at individual study data reveals both small between-group differences and significant within-group heterogeneity.

For example, Stroebe et al. Fear of victimization is therefore a universal fear for gun owners and non-gun owners alike, with important differences in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of those fears. In addition, biased risk assessments have been linked to individual feelings about a specific activity.

Whereas many activities in the real world have both high risk and high benefit, positive attitudes about an activity are associated with biased judgments of low risk and high benefit while negative attitudes are associated with biased judgments of high risk and low benefit Slovic et al. For those that have positive feelings about guns and their perceived benefit, the risk of gun ownership is minimized as discussed above. However, based on findings from psychological research on fear Loewenstein et al.

Consistent with this dichotomy, both calls for legislative gun reform, as well as gun purchases increase in the wake of mass shootings Wallace, ; Wozniak, , with differences primarily predicted by the relative self-serving attributional biases of gun ownership and non-ownership alike Joslyn and Haider-Markel, Psychological research has shown that fear is associated with loss of control, with risks that are unfamiliar and uncontrollable perceived as disproportionately dangerous Lerner et al.

Although mass shootings have increased in recent years, they remain extremely rare events and represent a miniscule proportion of overall gun violence. While some evidence suggests that gun owners may be more concerned about mass shootings than non-gun owners Dowd-Arrow et al. There is little doubt that parental fears about children being victims of gun violence were particularly heightened in the wake of Columbine Altheide, and it is likely that subsequent school shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Stoneman Douglas High have been especially impactful in the minds of those calling for increasing restrictions on gun ownership.

However, such responses may not only be ineffective, but potentially damaging. As with the literature on DGU, the available evidence supporting the effectiveness of specific gun laws in reducing gun violence is less than definitive Koper et al.

Crucially however, this perspective fails to consider the impact of gun control legislation on the fears of those who value guns for self-protection. In other words, gun control proposals designed to decrease fear have the opposite of their intended effect on those who view guns as symbols of personal safety, increasing rather than decreasing their fears independently of any actual effects on gun violence.

Such policies are therefore non-starters, and will remain non-starters, for the sizeable proportion of Americans who regard guns as essential for self-preservation. In this essay, it is further argued that persisting debates about the effectiveness of DGU and gun control legislation are at their heart trumped by shared concerns about personal safety, victimization, and mass shootings within a larger culture of fear, with polarized opinions about how to best mitigate those fears that are determined by the symbolic, cultural, and personal meanings of guns and gun ownership.

It likewise suggests a way forward by acknowledging both common fears and individual differences beyond the limited, binary caricature of the gun debate that is mired in endless arguments over disputed facts. For meaningful legislative change to occur, the debate must be steered away from its portrayal as two immutable sides caught between not doing anything on the one hand and enacting sweeping bans or repealing the 2nd Amendment on the other.

In reality, public attitudes towards gun control are more nuanced than that, with support or opposition to specific gun control proposals predicted by distinct psychological and cultural factors Wozniak, such that achieving consensus may prove less elusive than is generally assumed. Finally, the Dickey Amendment should be repealed so that research can inform public health interventions aimed at reducing gun violence and so that individuals can replace motivated reasoning with evidence-based decision-making about personal gun ownership and guns in society.

Aisch G, Keller J What happens after calls for new gun restrictions? Sales go up. New York Times. Accessed 19 Nov Altheide DL The Columbine shootings and the discourse of fear. Am Behav Sci — Article Google Scholar.

American Psychological Association One-third of US adults say fear of mass shootings prevents them from going to certain places or events. Press release, 15 August Anglemeyer A, Horvath T, Rutherford G The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Ann Int Med — Google Scholar. Accid Anal Prev — PubMed Article Google Scholar. Though at least symbolically contested, both are relatively modest measures, in many cases less stringent than the patchwork of state laws that crisscross the nation. Opponents of more gun control argue that there are already some 20, gun laws in the United States, and that, as more laws pass, more gun violence occurs.

Proponents argue that these are largely state and local laws with limited impact, and that without them incident rates would be even higher. Another area of dispute involves the use of guns in self-defense. Gun control opponents cite studies that say guns are used up to 2. Different data sets, different methodologies, extrapolations from limited samples. Both sides use comparative data from other countries to bolster their arguments.

Gun control advocates draw comparisons with countries that have stricter gun laws and much lower levels of gun violence. Opponents cite countries like Switzerland, with high levels of gun ownership and much lower gun-homicide rates, as evidence of the protective benefit of guns. Clearly, gun-related crime has more than a single cause, and measurements and trends are subject to manipulation by both sides. For example, while decreasing adult homicide rates in urban areas with tough gun laws are cited as proof of the effectiveness of control, increasing youth homicide rates in the same areas are cited as proof of its futility.

With such wildly divergent sets of statistical ammunition, one wonders if it even makes sense to prepare for this debate by arming oneself with facts and figures. At a minimum, it seems useful to try to quantify the problem, if not its exact nature. Most estimates place the number of guns in the United States at somewhere over million.

Approximately million guns became available to the general public between and , according to statistics compiled by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, but some of these are presumably no longer in existence or at least not in working order.

Handguns and rifles each account for slightly over a third of the total, with shotguns slightly under a third. An estimated 4 million new guns are added to these totals annually, and in recent years, over half of the new guns were handguns. Somewhere over a million crimes are committed each year involving a firearm, with recent estimates in the range of 1.

The number of deaths due to guns each year is approximately 38,, divided about evenly between homicides and suicides, with a small fraction attributed to accidents. The "Debate" Reducing the issue of gun control to "pros" and "cons" is probably the least desirable outcome of studying gun control, but it may be a very useful beginning. The pure pleasure of argument will attract some students. Other students may appreciate being asked for their opinions, rather than having to come up with a "right" answer at the outset of the discussion.

The debate used to be waged-both in classrooms and elsewhere-largely on constitutional grounds in terms of the right of individuals to keep and bear arms versus the role of government in providing for the common good. The U. Supreme Court has had relatively little to say about the Second Amendment, the main constitutional buttress of arguments that regulation is illegal.

The amendment 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. When the Supreme Court has ruled, it has been more likely to allow regulation than to prohibit it, at least at the state level.

Even Daniel Polsby, a lawyer and one of the most eloquent and persuasive opponents of gun control, suggests that seeking constitutional protection under the Second Amendment is a flawed approach.

He argues that a guaranteed right to bear arms under any circumstances, including those that might endanger public safety, would provide grounds for repeal of the amendment rather than a case for respecting it. Instead, Polsby argues that the best reason for opposing gun control is that "gun control laws don't work. The terms, but not the tenor, of the debate have changed.

Some of the most persuasive of the gun control opponents employ economic arguments, using rational choice theory to demonstrate the inability of regulation to stop the flow of guns into neighborhoods where crime is the dominant employer in local labor markets. Gun control advocates argue from a public health standpoint, noting that while guns may not cause violence, they do cause violence to be far more lethal. This "lethality," in suicide and accidents as well as homicide, is the imperative from a public health perspective for regulating guns like other deadly substances.

I recently listened to a debate, staged by a public policy school, that featured two respected figures hurling statistics at each other. They treated each other with disdain. I was appalled that this was the way in which we modeled "public affairs" for adults, let alone for young people.

Despite my own bias in favor of regulation, I found myself wondering if such regulation could be effective in a society so full of discord and so lacking in civil discourse.