Introduction
According to Alpers et al. (2013), for every 100 adults in the U.S., there are currently 101.5 guns privately owned (both legally and illegally), which puts the U.S. at the top of world rankings for gun ownership (178 countries). In the last decade or so, the number of deaths in the U.S. from firearms has risen from almost 29,000 to over 32,000, equating to over 10 per 100,000 people. So does that extent of gun ownership and homicides mean that more laws are needed to control not just gun ownership but also their use?
And do gun control laws have the desired effect? Federal legislation comprises the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act 1968, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act 1993, and the laws enacted by individual States. The law places restrictions on the private ownership of certain weapons and ammunition (such as machine guns, rifles, sawn-off shotguns and armor-piercing ammunition). However, obtaining a handgun is not that difficult, and in the U.S. there is no national record system for ascertaining who is “permitted to acquire, possess, carry, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition.”
This paper examines the causes of gun control in America, whether the existing legislation is justified by the current situation regarding gun ownership and use in the U.S., and whether the laws have the desired effect; i.e. of reducing the extent of illegal ownership and use of guns.
The Research
But the questions are whether these various pieces of legislation had the desired effect; i.e. of reducing and controlling the illegal use of guns and the resulting gun violence, and whether further or alternative, even stricter methods of control are needed.
Although as mentioned above there are requirements for background checks to be made on a prospective firearms purchaser, Agresti & Smith (2013) reported that government investigators using forged driver’s licenses with fictitious names had complete and total success in buying guns in five different states where background checks were required, showing that the system is inadequate and/or poorly implemented.
The right to bear arms is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution (the Second Amendment) and that right is jealously guarded by many Americans. But that does not necessarily mean that everyone is happy with the present legislation. In fact, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults published in January 2013 (“New High: 51% Think U.S. Needs Stricter Gun Control Laws”), a small majority thinks tougher laws are needed. However, the survey found that 42 percent oppose laws being made any tougher. And that divergence of opinion tends to be along party lines between the .Republicans and the Democrats. Jones (Jan 2013) reports the outcome of the Gallup Mood of the Nation poll, which show that of those surveyed, 59 percent of Republicans or Republican supporters were satisfied with the current gun laws, whereas the figure for Democrats was only 28 percent.
When there are mass shootings, there is a natural tendency for increased calls for tighter gun control laws, although according to Linskey (Sep 2013), such killings account for less than 0.1 percent of the total numbers of murders in the U.S. over the last 30 years. Nonetheless, the natural response to the publicity given to events such as the murder of 13 people at the Washington Navy Yard is to call for stricter controls and better security.
So would tighter controls on gun ownership and use in the form of tougher gun laws save lives? Should such tougher laws be imposed and enacted nationally? Alcindor (March 2013) reports on a study by the Boston Children’s Hospital, which used data obtained from no less than 50 U.S. states, finding that states with the most gun laws experienced 42 percent fewer firearm-related deaths than states having the fewest such laws (data range 2007-2010). In addition, the study found that those tougher states had firearm-related homicide and suicide rates 40 percent and 37 percent lower respectively. It was also found that state laws requiring stricter background checks and other purchase requirements resulted in fewer gun crimes and suicides.
Also, an editorial piece on the Opinion pages of the New York Times (17 Dec 2012) entitled “The Gun Challenge” reminds readers that America (which it describes as having “a national fixation with firearms”) has per capita the highest number of guns in civilian circulation: an estimated 300 million – around one for every adult. The article cites a study of data from 26 countries conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, which shows that more firearms means more murders. The article also notes that the homicide rate in America is 15 times higher than that of other countries where the gun laws controlling and regulating private ownership are tougher. It points to countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom where the governments responded to mass shootings by toughening up their gun laws, which has resulted in a real decline in killings involving guns. In the case of Australia, the numbers of homicides involving firearms fell by 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, following the introduction of new laws in 1996. And in Britain, a ban on private ownership of automatic weapons and most handguns passed in 1996 after a gunman murdered 16 schoolchildren and a schoolteacher in Scotland, not only introduced exceptionally tough laws, but brought about a marked declined in murders involving guns. According to the article: “hours of exhaustive paperwork are required if anyone wants to own even a shotgun or rifle for hunting.” The article also contrasts Japan (where very tough gun control laws exist) with the U.S., stating that in 2008 only 11 people in Japan died from gunshots in 2008, compared with 12,00 in America in that same year. The article closes by quoting New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who said: “We are the only industrialized country that has this problem. In the whole world, the only one.”
Despite the apparent weight of evidence that stricter gun control laws reduce homicide numbers and therefore save lives, there are nonetheless those who try to make the case that gun control laws actually increase the numbers of homicides, although such people are mostly members of the pro-gun community, seeing to justify and defend their right to hang on to their weapons. As a consequence, and given the long-held Constitutional right to carry a gun (bear arms), it looks extremely unlikely that a majority of Americans would support any sort of ban on owning a handgun, even in the face of the evidence that the well-publicized mass killings would not have occurred if the laws on gun purchase and ownership were much tighter and better enforced. Any U.S. administration attempting to seriously curb gun ownership and use would have a seriously uphill battle on their hands. As reported by Gollom (Dec 2012) for CBC News, although the mass killing of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school caused an upsurge of calls for better gun controls, it is most unlikely that anything significant would be passed by Congress, especially as the House of Representatives is Republican-controlled, and those politicians are very conscious of the need to keep their voters on their side.
Conclusions
Laws on the regulation and control of guns in the U.S. date back almost 250 years when there seemed to be valid reasons for introducing them. With the vast proliferation of gun ownership since then, it is surely high time not only that gun control laws were made tougher – with more severe penalties for illegal ownership and/or use – but also that the hotchpotch of individual state laws are replaced by uniform federal legislation that is rigorously enforced. At the onset of that major change in the U.S. approach to gun ownership, the Second Amendment needs to be clarified to stipulate that the right to bear arms, which may have been valid and relevant in the 1700’s is no longer so, removing at a stroke that quite frankly outdated and absurd idea that everyone is entitled to own and carry a lethal weapon. Secondly, there needs to be an initial amnesty period of (say) three months, when weapons can be handed in for destruction. The changes would require the very strongest political will on the part of the President and his administration, accompanied by a dramatic increase in penalties for flouting the new laws. That may mean building more prisons to house a whole new crop of offenders, but better that relatively short-term effect than continuing on with the spiral of increasing homicides caused by the “easy” gun ownership that exists now.
The effects of gun control laws have not been as beneficial as no doubt was hoped, but mainly because they are not sufficiently and rigorously enforced. For example, it is a widely-held view that background checks that should be made in the mandatory 5-day (longer in some states) waiting period when purchasing a gun are often not done at all.
Works Cited:
Agresti, James, D., & Smith, Reid, K. (2013). “Gun Control.” Just Facts. Web. 27 November 2013.
Alcindor, Yamiche. (March 2013). “Study: States with more gun laws have less gun violence.” USA Today. Web. 26 November 2013.
Alpers, Philip, Amélie Rossetti, Marcus Wilson and Quentin Royet. (2013). “Guns in the United States: Firearms, armed violence and gun law.” Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. Web. 5 November 2013.
Gollom, Mark. (Dec 2012). “Are tougher U.S. gun laws on the horizon?” CBC News. Web. 26 November 2013.
Jones, Jeffrey, M. (Jan 2013). “Party Views Diverge Most on U.S. Gun Policies.” Gallup. Web. 5 November 2013.
Lee, Jack. (Feb 2013). “14 Crucial Moments in U.S. Gun Control History.” PolicyMic. Web. 26 November 2013.
Linskey, Annie. (Sep 2013). “Mass Shootings Fuel Fear, Account for Fraction of Murders.” Bloomberg. Web. 27 November 2013.
“New High: 51% Think U.S. Needs Stricter Gun Control Laws.” (2013). Rasmussen Reports. Web. 27 November 2013.
“The Gun Challenge.” (17 Dec 2012). New York Times. Web. 27 November 2013.
