In ancient Greece when someone committed a murder the weapon was destroyed because the Ancient Greeks believed that fate was decided by the gods so the murder was not as responsible for the crime as the weapon itself. Instrumentality when used in reference to weapons is the hypothesis that the increased availability of weapons in a certain area also increases that areas likelihood of weapon based offences. Essentially the increased availability of guns increases the chances that a criminal will choose a gun as their weapon of choice for committing crimes, not to mention this also increases the range of crimes this criminal can initiate. The result of this is of course the intensification of violence, simply put more guns equals more gun crime (Cook, 1991; Zimring & Hawkins, 1997).
The registering of gun owners makes sense but Executive Vice president of the NRA Wayne LaPierre raises a good point in that it infringes not only on Americans right to bear arms but also on their right to privacy but that’s what this argument boils down to, are you going to give up your freedom/privacy or your guns? The question you should be asking right back is; why should I have to choose between them? Britain is one of the toughest countries in the world when it comes to gun regulation. After the Dunblane massacre, UK law had banned all private ownership of handguns. There has never been a ‘gun culture’ in Britain on par with the U.S but there were, in Britain 200,000 legally registered handguns before the ban. Anyone found in possession of illegal firearms can face up to ten years imprisonment and extremely heavy fines. Peter Squires claims that since the Dunblane massacre there has been a small but significant decline in the use of firearms. The figures aren’t everything but "the murder rate has fallen and all the indicators are moving in the right direction."
"Any weapon can be misused in a crime. Gun control will never be a complete solution to events like the mass shooting we saw in Connecticut. The swamp of gun use has not been fully drained and while tighter gun control removes risk on an incremental basis, significant numbers of weapons remain in Britain."
The conclusion is although decreasing the amount of guns or banning certain types of guns may slightly decrease the amount of gun violence, any weapon can be used to commit violence, the root cause of violence is more important than taking away the tools used to commit violence.
Bibliography;
“A 14-year-old student suffered a gunshot wound to the head Thursday outside a middle
“A teen who performed at events around President Barack Obama's inauguration was shot to
death in Chicago this week, and now her story has become part of the debate in Washington over gun violence nationwide” CNN. Chicago. 2013. Television
Homicide (2013) Where there are more guns there is more homicide. Retrieved from
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/
Memoli, Michael. A. “Biden Presses for Action on Gun Measures” L.A Times January 26
2013: Print
Roth, J.A. (1995) Firearms and Violence Research in Brief.
Schmalleger, F. (2012). Criminology today: An integrative introduction (6th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Shear, Michael. D. “N.R.A Leader Denounces Obama’s Call for Gun Control” The New York
Times January 22, 2013: Print
Sheley, J.F. et al. Weapon-Related Victimization in Selected Inner-City High School Samples
Wilkinson, P. (2013) CNN Dunblane: How UK school massacre led to tighter gun control.
Retrieved from
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/17/world/europe/dunblane-lessons
Wright, J.D. Sheley, J.F. Gun Acquisition and Possession in Selected Juvenile Samples.
