In the wake of yet another mass shooting, survivors and activists are again calling for greater restrictions on gun ownership. Groups have called for raising the legal age to purchase a gun to 21, creating more thorough background checks for purchases and even banning assault rifles. Yet gun owners and groups that represent them have resisted such restrictions claim that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Which position is correct? Are restrictions on gun ownership -- and even the prohibition of some kinds of guns -- justified? Does the ownership of a gun cause harm? How does it compare to things like the possession of dangerous material such as poison, fertilizer and plutonium? Can the Harm to Others Principle justify restrictions and/or prohibitions on gun possession?
The restriction and prohibition of certain guns is justified because of the harm to others principle. Claims made by individuals who oppose gun restriction often include statements about personal safety, game hunting or protecting others in dangerous situations. However there comes to a point in guns where the force they provide is simply excessive, guns like assault rifles. There is no need to own a gun that forceful, the purpose it serves can be accomplished by a ‘lesser’ gun with ease. For that reason excessively brutal and powerful weapons are unnecessary and should be prohibited. In regards to the ‘lesser’ guns, such as handguns, because they have the ability to cause severe and often fatal harm to others -as fertilizer, poison and plutonium can- they should be more heavily restricted than they are today. I believe that to purchase a gun a person should go through extensive background checks, state for what purpose they would use it for, attend a mandatory gun safety program and have routine house calls to insure that their weapon is securely stored. Because guns can cause death and have been used in hundreds of mass shootings in the US the purchase of them should be at the least restricted and in severe cases, prohibited.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of gun control is one of the most polarizing topics in the political spectrum. Guns have been used by a few individuals to commit terrible crimes on others and to cause terror in many more. However, should the legal gun owner have to pay for the sins of the deranged gun man? I believe that if someone owns a gun that it does not inherently make that person more dangerous. Especially if that person has had the training and experience with guns. The idea of just banning some guns is sensible when talking about obvious outliers like heavy machine guns and explosives that are specifically manufactured for military use. However, the banning of civilian acquired guns such as rifles, shotguns, and handguns should be moderated but not eliminated. If a individual desires a gun for their own protection, recreation, or business they should not be hindered. Especially in the case for protection a gun is not just a weapon but also a deterrence that should not be restricted to anyone who is able minded.
ReplyDeleteGun ownership is a controversial issue that is often debated as people disagree on the government’s role in placing restrictions on guns to prevent harm or allowing individuals to exercise their liberty. In regards to this topic, I agree with many of John Stuart Mill’s opinions on whether it is justifiable for the government to place restrictions on certain things, such as guns. Some have argued that the government should raise the legal age for buying a gun to 21, having more thorough background checks, and banning some assault rifles, however, I disagree because simply owning a gun is not dangerous and should not be restricted. I believe people should be able to own guns, including assault rifles, because the government should only restrict objects that have no use for good and only cause harm. As Mill states, “If poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale. They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without operating in the other"(95). Because of this, it is justifiable for the government to restrict peoples’ ability to own bombs because they are not used recreationally and they cause mass amounts of public destruction and harm. However, people use assault rifles for recreational use, but also for the purpose of protecting themselves from the government. Therefore, it would be an unfair infringement on peoples’ liberty as they would only want to use the gun for innocent purposes. In addition, it is important and good to perform background checks and register guns in order to stop bad people from easily buying a gun.
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ReplyDeleteWhile I see both sides of this argument, I absolutely agree with the statement “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Although the gun actually does the harm, a gun is harmless without someone actively using it. For some reason this quote is controversial, which surprises me because any rational thinker would acknowledge that this is not foreign idea in society. When someone drives drunk and kills someone, we don’t blame the car, we blame the driver for using the car in a dangerous manor. When someone stabs someone, we don’t blame the knife, we blame the assailant for using the knife for harm. The counter argument for this is that if we simply didn’t have any guns nobody would die from guns. I completely agree with this, but the issue is that we live in a society where guns exist and there is nothing anybody could ever do to completely change this. Even with the strictest gun control policies, guns will always be in the United States, so suggesting that simply getting rid of guns all together is a viable solution for this problem is simply not feasible. A solution that I fully agree with is improvement of background checks. Although the government has improved its screening process over the years, there are still too many cases of people slipping through the cracks. This being said, I’m not sure how Mill would feel about background checks. When discussing poison, Mill discussed how the purchaser’s information should be allowed to be collected, but they should not be denied the sale simply because it is considered dangerous. Since background checks can lead to people being denied the ability to purchase a gun, Mill might object to them. However, he might make an exception to his philosophy if the people being denied were mentally unfit for owning a fire arm.
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ReplyDeleteA solution that Mill and I both would absolutely disagree with is the outright prohibition on certain guns (note that while I agree with certain extremely high-powered military weapons being banned in the general population, I won’t go into detail about where that line should be drawn. For this argument I will simply be talking about the prohibition of currently legal assault-style weapons, as they are the major controversy these days). In a world where bad people exist, bad thing will happen. Although not utopian, it’s true and it’s not always possible to stop bad people from doing bad things. If a problem get’s bad enough then people must revaluate and determine IF there is a way to stop the issue, but how bad is our current mass shooting problem? Before I go into this, these mass shooting are obviously tragic and I am in no way trying to play-down the significance of these human lives. This being said, I believe that Americans have been pushed to believe that our mass shooting problem is much worse than it truly is. About 100 people every year die from mass shootings (this number is probably much lower depending on your definition of a mass shooting, but we will inflate it to 100 for the sake of this argument). This means that every American has a 1 in 3.28 million chance of dying in a mass shooting. Compare this to the chance of dying in a car accident at a 1 in 8600 chance. That means you are over 380 times more likely to die in a car accident than die in a mass shooting, yet all of you drive in a car every day. If you think that’s crazy think about the fact that you’re over 6 times more likely to be struck by lightening than killed in a mass shooting. The reason I point these statistics out is because prohibiting AR-15s and other similar weapons would mean taking guns out the hands of millions of good, law abiding Americans simply because a few bad people decided to use a gun for the wrong reason. The only way to stop a bad person with a gun is by having good people with guns, so when you disarm the good people you do a disservice to everyone. Think about it, when’s the last time you heard of an armed robbery happening at a gun shop. Exactly, the presence of good citizens with guns actively deters bad people with guns. Unjustified paranoia over a 5-10 bad people per year does not warrant a mass prohibition on firearms for millions of good Americans. If anything, I believe that if people are afraid about mass shootings they should urge more GOOD Americans to arm themselves. As I said before, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is by having more good guys with guns. As backwards as it may sound to some people, I believe that mass shootings would decrease in America if more good Americans were armed (obviously with proper training and background checks, etc…I’m not suggesting randomly handing out guns to people). As controversial as this stance might be in today’s society, I believe Mill would agree with me.