Gun control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Gun control - Essay Example 1). It is the responsibility of the governments to reduce firearms violence by developing gun control programs that make it more difficult for people to acquire and use guns. Federal, state, and local governments and law enforcement agencies need to better understand the gun violence problem so their limited resources can be effectively employed. This paper argue that gun control policies can significantly influence the number of deaths and injuries from firearms Gun Control Gun control is the government enacting some type of legislation to restrict availability of firearms or ammunition. The majority of governments that have implemented gun control legislation have focused on firearms ownership restrictions and background checks in attempt to reduce firearms violence. The common objective is to reduce a criminal's access to firearms in the hope that violent crime will be reduced. Currently, large urban areas of the United States are attempting to deal with a host of issues related t o firearms violence. Governments have used different types of laws and enforcement techniques in an attempt to eliminate or reduce firearms violence. The large numbers of homicides that occur in these areas have resulted in public pressure to effectively deal with the problem. Jurisdictions have attempted to lower the amount of firearms violence by enacting a number of laws on a whole range of issues related to firearms. ... 63-79) studied gun availability's effect on violent crime and found that a reduction in gun availability reduced the homicide rate and there was some change in the robbery rate. Why Gun Control in Necessary? Firearm injuries and deaths have reached an epidemic level in the United States. No other industrialized country in the world has comparable rates of mortality, morbidity, or financial costs incurred from firearm ownership and use (Fingerhut and Klein, 3290-3295). Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of injury death in the United States, and since 1972 have killed on average more than 30,000 people each year (Marwick, 1). More than 80 Americans die every single day as a result of firearms (Egendorf 74). While trends for the leading cause of injury death, motor vehicles, have been declining, deaths from firearms have increased. In some regions of the country, firearm deaths far exceed motor vehicle fatalities (Hoyert, Kochanek, Murphy 1). A study by Cohen & Steiner (p. 1- 8) ranked firearms as the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. Unlike motor vehicles, firearms are much less regulated. Firearms are not subject to any manufacturing standards or government oversight. For example, in many states, the purchase of guns does not require any licensing, education on how to use them, regulations for storage, or limitations on design or manufacturing (Egendorf 74). In 1998, five out of six handguns made in United States lacked basic magazine safeties to prevent the firearm from firing when the clip is removed or load indicators that would indicate when a bullet is in the gun (Vernick et al., 427-440). Gun manufacturers are producing more and more guns. About 4.5 million new firearms, including two million handguns are sold each year in the