gun ownership

Gun Ownership

According to the report by Federal Bureau of Investigation, 75,685 people were injured by gunshots in United States of America in the year of 2000 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2001). However, should firearms be allowed to citizens for ownership? A large number of people stated that gun ownership is for safety. Nevertheless, there are strong arguments for against gun ownership that it encourages people to involve into illegal activity. This essay will mainly focus on arguments against gun ownership which are divided into three parts, each part contains two ideas. First is Criminal violence, the second part is Accidental Deaths, and the last one is the using of guns. Who use it?

The first major problem which occurs from gun ownership is it increases the volume of criminal violence. The first idea of criminal violence is crime. Gun ownership is one of the reasons which highly escalate the volume of crime, for example, FBI reports that in United States of America around 16,910 people were involved in murders and around 65 types of guns were used by these homicides in 1998. (Ronald and Stephen 2001) To top up, BBC news telecasted a crime report about crime in England and Wales which stated that 35% of gun crime has been increased in one year; it was clear in the news that crimes involving firearms in 2001 were 7,382 which escalated to 9,974 in the year of 2002. Furthermore, the report showed the circumstances of both countries that are facing an average of 27 offences involving firearms every day (BBC, 2003), Guns are also used for bank robberies; for example, a report by Federal Bureau of Investigation assured that 6,154 banks were robbed in the year of 2006 and around 3,747 guns were used by robbers causing 179 injuries and 13 deaths. (Bank Crime Statics, FBI 2006)

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The other idea of criminal violence is terrorist acts. Gun ownership can be cause of huge terrorist acts and because of these acts hundreds of people can die, for example, the Mumbai carnage, India. According to the telegraph news paper the terrorist were stuck on at least seven places armed with automatic rifles and grenades searching for British and Americans to slaughter. The news paper states that, the main target of the terrorists was the two famous five star hotels in which around eighty people were killed and more than two-fifty were injured (The Telegraph news, 2008). Another example of terrorist act is the Red mosque massacre in Islamabad, Pakistan. According to BBC news the fight was between the Islamic extremist and the Pakistani army. The terrorists were armed with machine guns and AK-47. The fight ended in red mosque with thousands of deaths but as a result hundred of army men are being killed in northern part of Pakistan. (BBC, 2007)

The second major problem is accidental deaths. The first idea of accidental deaths is family home. Owning a gun for home can increase the risk of unintentionally murder, for example, in United States of America, out of 626 shootings in or around the three cities of US showed that every time a gun was used in home for defence purpose or legal shooting there were 4 unintentionally deaths .It is argued by Edward C and Klatt MD that ‘rather than being used for defence, most of these weapons inflict injuries on the owners and their families’ (The University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library, 2008). A report by Centres for Disease Control stated that there were 802 accidental deaths involving firearms in United States of America in the year of 2001. (CDC, 2004)

The second idea of accidental deaths is police shoot people by mistake. There have been issues police shooting people by mistake. According to an article by Lise Olsen in which she states that more than 189 shooting incidents involving police had been happened in Harris County in United States (Houston Chronicle, 2004). According to the Daily Mail news in 2003 there have been seven incidents involving police shooting by mistake in the UK. The news stated that the incidents are being increased because of the police men who are armed and does not have a proper aim and the police men are shooting themselves mistakenly. (Daily Mail, 16 March 2008)

The third major problem is the using of the guns, who use it? The first main idea of this part is children. There are huge amount of cases involving children violence. A firearm injury leads as second cause of un-natural deaths in children. According to Heninger and Hanzlick 2008, an American city showed the crimes of teenage homicides and in 88% of these cases firearms was involved (The University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library, 2008). This wide amount might be because the many children have easy access to guns. Patterson and Smith 1987, states that ‘In one survey, 10% of families admitted to having unlocked and loaded firearms within easy reach of children’ (The University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library, 2008).

The second main idea is corrupt police. Every nation has some corrupt people and there could be corrupt police officers anywhere. Gun ownership can help corrupt police officers to involve in illegal activities. According to the BBC, Sir Paul Condon admitted that there are corrupt police officers in his force and the Government is trying to find them. (BBC, 1998) Furthermore, the BBC stated that the racist police officers are killing black people, in the news Doreen Lawrence stated that ‘black people are still dying on the streets and in the back of police vans’ (BBC, 1999), in another news by BBC which states that in Scotland 3,607 racist incidents involving police murdering people were reported in the year of 2000. (BBC, 2003)

In conclusion, by looking at the arguments above it could clearly argued that gun ownership is totally harmful for the society if it is not provided in the right hands, the gun licence should be provided only to those who are completely trained know how to use firearms, this can make society better and peaceful. As it could be seen from above arguments how guns are used for terrorist acts it could be argued if gun ownership is restricted for the citizens than there is no way terrorists could involve in these kinds of terrorist acts. It could be seen from the difference in the crime rate in the UK and in United States of America, where in the UK guns are not legalised so there are less crimes as compared to the crime ratio in United States of America

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BBC 1998, UK New Moves to weed out corrupt police officers [online], Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009]

BBC 1999, Lawrence report blasts ‘racist’ police [online], Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009]

BBC 2003, Race attacks continues to rise [online], Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009]

Daily Mail 2008, Gun injuries soar as police ‘experts’ blast themselves and colleagues by mistake [online], Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009]

Federal Bureau of Investigation 2001, Uniform Crime Reports for the United States: Crime in the United States 2000: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C: U.S. Department of Justice; [online] Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009]

Houston Chronicle 2004, Officers get little nightmare training [online], Available at: [Accessed 18/02/2009]

Ronald M.H and Stephen T.H 2001, Murder In America, Sage Publications, Inc, pp - 07

The University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library 2008, Statistics, Gun Control Issues, and Safety [online], Available at: [Accessed: 18/02/2009)