While part of the American public is crying out for tougher gun laws the other part wants the laws to remain the way that they are. In a study conducted by the US Department of Justice 52% of all owners of handguns used their guns for sport or hunting. The people who are using guns for entertainment do not want to see the laws tightened anymore then they are already. Reasons why people believe that gun regulations should not continue are people who are criminals will always be able to get guns even if its not legally they will always have them, long guns are to large to be concealed on someone without anyone noticing and most people are using their long guns for sport and hunting not committing crimes.
Bellow is an essay I wrote that is against tighter long gun control in Maryland
Gun
Control
The
twenty first century is a scary place for people to live, the times are ever
changing and there are new threats emerging every day whether it be online or
in person an individual is open on many front to attack. Due to recent events
that have taken place the government is trying to crack down on gun control and
the availibity of such weapons to the public. At the moment Maryland had
inflicted strict rules and regulations on the sale and carrying of handguns,
such laws are not in place for rifles and shotguns and nor should they be.
Maryland should keep the laws the way that they are for not having to register
the firearm or having to have a permit to purchase or carry the firearm because
the size of rifles and long guns makes them unable to be concealed on a person,
gun protections laws do not stop criminals from getting the firearms in the
first place and rifles and shot guns are being used for sport or collection not
to commit crimes.
Due to tragedies involving guns in the past
decades there is an air of uncertainty around guns and people live in
fear. The American Public is scared of
someone hiding a gun on his or her person and opening fire in a public area.
While this concern is true for handguns it is false for rifles and shotguns. The
average length for a shot gun in American is 47.5 inches long, 3.96 feet, and
the average length of a rifle is around 44 inches, 3.67 feet. With guns as
large as that there is no way that a person could conceal such a weapon on
their person. Maryland laws tightly regulate who can and cannot have a handgun
and who can conceal them on their person. Keeping such tight regulation on
handguns makes sense since they are so small can easily be hidden from the
public and the police. Rifles and shotguns do not require a permit to conceal
such a weapon on your person, nor should they since it is impossible. In 2011
in the United Sates 6,220 people were killed using a handgun while only 679
people were killed from a long gun (United States). Out of 100% of traces that
the ATF had to do for the police regarding crimes 79% of these traces were run
on handguns (Zawitz 4). Based off of these statistics it is easy to see that handgun
regulations should be what the government spends their time focusing on rather
then long gun regulation.
Placing
tighter gun control laws on guns does not always limit criminals from getting
guns. Historically when tighter regulations have been placed on things in the
United States it has just created an underground market in which the government
knows even less about what people have. With the under ground gun market people
illegally obtain guns which are not in any way regulated by the government. The
underground market is more prevalent when it comes to gangs because it is no
questions asked and the guns can not be traced back to the person who
purchased them. Cook says “Most gun
crime in the US is accounted for by people not legally allowed to have guns” (F561).With
this information it is easy to see why tighter gun regulations do not work.
While the idea of regulation firearms more closely seems to be a good idea in
theory when it is put into practice it reveals more flaws then it does
benefits. A person who is a known criminal obviously does not obey the law so
creating more laws on something is not going to be very effective at hindering
them from doing it regardless of the laws. A survey of prisoners in jail before
the tighter gun regulations came into effect shows that 23% of inmates had
obtained guns illegally on an underground market and another 10% had stolen
them (Zawitz 3). These statists show that regardless of what laws that are put
into place for guns to avoid them falling into the hands of a criminal there
are numerous other ways for them to illegally obtain weapons.
When
it comes to sport shooting and hunting long guns are a necessity. In a national
survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice they found that 52% of gun
owners used their guns for hunting, sport shooting or both (Cook 3). With more
then half of all gun owners using their guns for sport shooting and hunting
placing stricter gun control laws on rifles and shotguns is pointless. When
more then half of the population of rifle and shotgun owners are using their
weapons for a sport there is no immediate danger coming from that half of the
population. If there were tighter regulations on such weapons people may not be
able to keep up a hobby such as hunting in which case certain species such as
deer would have an exponential population growth. Another huge part of the
rifle and shotguns domain are the antiques and collectables that people buy but
never use because of their age. While these guns can be counted as firearms
that a person own most are never even fired nor may they even be safe to fire.
Guns have be an essential part of American history and they will always be
desirable to a significant portion of the population for reasons other then
committing acts of violence.
Maryland’s
laws should stay the same as they are during these changing times for gun
control because rifles and shotguns are not the guns that are causing the
threat to the general population. Even with the loose regulation that is place
on these types of weapons now there is no need to tighten them because you can
not conceal the weapon on your person and there are too many people who are
just using these guns for sport. Maryland should continue the battle against
handguns but should remain the same on their stance about rifles and shotguns.
Works Cited
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. GunPolicy.org, 12 November. Accessed
12 November 2013. at: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
Cook,
Philip J., and Jens Ludwig. "Guns in America: National Survey on Private
Ownership and Use of Firearms." National Institute of Justice Research
in Brief May (1997): n. pag. Print.
Cook,
Philip J., et al. "Underground Gun Markets." The Economic Journal
117.November (2007): n. pag. Print.
Zawitz,
Marianne W. "Guns Used in Crime." Bureau of Justice Statistics
Selected Findings
NCJ-148201.July (1995): n. pag. Print.
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