Sample Essay on the Problem of Firearms Law in the U.S.

The debates over firearms control in the United States have been a matter to analyze for years already, usually stirred by a range of incidents involving mass killings by gunmen in small towns and megalopolises. Twenty children killed by a psycho or a church shooting by a lunatic. It seems like gun control is all over the news and every single day brings us a new sentiment for new firearms restrictions.

There’s one absolute truth: gun control has nothing to do with the murder rates. Removing guns from the society doesn’t usually lead to massive mayhem. That’s the point that everyone used to argue about. Poverty is the matter that has far greater correlation to the mass killings and crime in general than the unrestricted guns. This in its turn is directly linked to education. To cut the story, the society in the USA doesn’t have the so-called gun problem but it certainly has leakages in the cultural segment. Guns do not kill people. It’s people who kill people. Those critics, who come against the gun control law, bring up the times before society had access to guns. People had boulders and bows, spears and arrows that were used to take somebody else’s life. When faced with the firearms limitations, we would simply go back to using those mentioned above. Thus, there’s no difference whether the firearms are banned or not. The other issue is that guns give the US people an opportunity to protect themselves from those, who want to take away their lives for any reason. But the point is that taking the firearms away won’t help, the potential enemies will always find a way to hurt.

The society in the US tends to pander to its basic instincts, such as violence. Instead of talking to each other, we prefer watching the wall-mounted TV that depicts someone being tortured to death. People are desensitized to violence, while having no coping skills required to face the reality.

In the 1993, when the gun control law was amended by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, 57% of Americans were sure that gun ownership control was more crucial than the rights protection. However, in 2012 it dropped to 47%, while the number of the US citizens, who prioritized gun rights over gun control, went up to 46%. The same story happened in Canada and the UK. The first one promulgated 1995 Firearms Act that required gun licensing, while Britain introduced the Firearms Act in 1987. But the fact is that the gun laws in both countries remain in the center of debates, since a great number of firearms remains within the country.

To conclude with, even Obama’s new executive actions on firearms control expressed at the beginning of 2016 won’t change the society. None of the restrictions would have stopped any tragedy with mass shootings in the US, and none of them will prevent broader use of guns in any sort of aggressive activates. Human nature is more powerful than any restrictions.

References:

Limiting Tort Liability of Gun Manufacturers and Gun Sellers: Legal Analysis of P.L. 109-92 (2005), by Henry Cohen.
Firearms Prohibitions and Domestic Violence Convictions: The Lautenberg Amendment, by T. J. Halstead.
Gun Control: Statutory Disclosure Limitations on ATF Firearms Trace Data and Multiple Handgun Sales Reports, by William J. Krouse.
Firearm Ownership and Violent Crime in the U.S.: An Ecological Study by Monuteaux, Lee, Hemenway, Mannix, Fleegler.
Gun Trafficking and the Southwest Border, by Vivian S. Chu and William J. Krouse.
Crime, Deterrence and the Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns, Journal of Legal Studies, by Lott, J. and D. Mustard, 1-68.
More guns, more crime, Forthcoming by Duggan, Mark, Journal of Political Economy (2001).