New York Times and Was Published on

¶ … New York Times and was published on March 20, 1994 posing a discussion on the issue of introduction of stricter rules on the gun ownership as well as withdrawing more guns from the hand of the public. The article goes on to look at the various aspects of crime that are gun related and the means of controlling and lessening these crimes.

Thesis of the author The overall thesis of the author is that there is need to have means of combating the illegal guns in the hands of criminals and potential criminals rather than reducing the number of guns in the hands of legal holders of such guns.

He disapproves of the call to have stricter gun licensing procedures and reduction of the licensing of guns and points toward the reduction of number of guns in the hands of criminals using various means as the legal guns remain the hands of the licensed holders.

To support his thesis, the author outlines several vulnerabilities that the legal holders of guns will be subjected to incase the guns are taken away, the statistics that indicate that legal ownership of guns does not contribute to violence and crime and the alternatives that are available to the law enforcement agencies in the approach to gun crime control and illegal gun possession menace.

Most effective points in support of thesis The author has several arguments that are geared towards supporting the thesis though just a few have the weight that can be considered worth the mention in support of his thesis. One of the very salient arguments he puts forth is the fact that among the 200 million guns that are in private ownership out of which one-third are handguns, only 2% of the handguns are used to commit crimes.

This translates to about 4 millions guns out of the 200 million guns, a figure that statistically and in a comparative can be said to be small as compared to the total number out of which the sample has been taken. He further indicates that only one-sixth of the handguns used in serious criminal offences are bought from pawnshops or from gun shops. This then means a significant majority of the guns used in criminal acts are guns that are borrowed, stolen or illegally smuggled into the hands of the criminals.

This then implies that majority of the legally acquired guns are responsibly used and restricting them would not amount to any significant reduction in gun crimes, may be just cut one-sixth of the crimes to the maximum. The other plausible argument is that on the threat of persona security if the legally owned guns are withdrawn from the hands of the law abiding citizens before the illegal ones are mopped out of the criminal hands or from those illegally holding them.

This, he says will put the law abiding citizen at a situation where he will not be able to deploy self-defense. This is a reasonable argument since the main aim of the gun restriction movement is to curb crimes that are gun related, yet if the criminals still hold the guns and the legally owned guns are taken away, that will help expand the room of operation by the criminals.

Least effective examples There are however some points that the writer tends to use to justify his thesis but do not add up as significant in the building of the argument. These are points that are either too hollow to hold ground or are countering the thesis itself in a way.

Arguing that the wielding of a weapon would fend off would be thieves is quite inaccurate since the thieves would be having weapons as well that they intend to use to scare a victim into submission but are likely to use it if they see the victim armed as well. The presentation of a weapon in a robbery scenario is likely to escalate the violence to a more deadly situation that it should have been in the first place.

In as much as the robbers may be scared off at one point, they would learn their lesson and go look for weapons so that in their next robbery attempt they do not lose out. This argument is counterproductive in the reduction of gun related crimes since it leads to more illegal guns in the hands of the criminals at the long run. Discarding the gun control on the basis that the number of injuries afflicted by handguns is fewer that fatalities by rifles and shotguns is quite misplaced.

He further states in support of this that the number of fatal gun accidents have been declining while the number of gun ownership has been rising. He does not give the intervening factors that make this a possibility. Incase there are intervening factors that may cease at some time and the numbers are reversed then this argument would be null and void. The author then indicates that the government has failed to protect the citizens hence there should be more guns out there.

This is a misplaced reedy instead there should more pressure on the government to intensify security and the citizens to provide security to each other through viable programs like the community policing. It is also worth noting that the pat-down by police will only nab the illegal weapons that are carried with the criminal at the time of the encounter with the police. Most of the time these guns are left at designated places only to be fetched for a specific assignment and returned.

This will also not deter the illegal use of legally owned guns as the author has confessed that 2% of the legally owned guns get engaged in illegal uses. It should also occur to the author that there are enough gun detection technologies that are out there but still the use of guns in crimes persists. These technologies are limited to ranges, even if it is fifteen feet, there is still possibility of criminals to be more that.