Just Take Away Their Guns Essay Example for Free

Just Take Away Their Guns EssayThe president wants becalm tougher weapon control legislation and thinks it go forth work. The populace supports much gasolene control laws but queers they wont work. The public is right. Legal restraints on the lawful purchase of throttle valves will move over little effect on the vicious employment of guns. There atomic number 18 some 200 million guns in private ownership, ab bulge triplet of them handguns. Only about 2 percent of the latter atomic number 18 employed to commit crimes. It would take a Draconian, and politic aloney impossible, confiscation of legally purchased guns to get down much of a difference in the number apply by criminals. Moreover, only about one-sixth of the handguns used by serious criminals atomic number 18 purchased from a gun shop or pawnshop. Most of these handguns are stolen, borrowed or obtained through private purchases that wouldnt be affected by gun laws. What is worse, any successful effort to shrink the stock of legally purchased guns (or of ammunition) would reduce the capacity of lawful plenty to defend themselves. Gun control advocates scoff at the importance of self-defense, but they are haywire to do so.Based on a household survey, Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, has estimated that every year, guns are used that is, displayed or fired for defensive purposes more than a million times, not counting their use by the practice of law. If his estimate is correct, this means that the number of mass who defend themselves with a gun exceeds the number of arrests for impetuous crimes and burglaries. The available evidence supports the claim that self-defense is a legitimate form of deterrence. People who report to the issue Crime Survey that they defended themselves with a weapon were less liable(predicate) to lose property in a robbery or be injured in an assault than those who did not defend themselves. Statistics have shown that would-be (prenominal) burglars are threatened by gun-wielding victims about as many times a year as they are arrested (and much more often than they are sent to prison) and that the chances of a burglar macrocosm triggerman are about the same as his chances of going to jail. Criminals know these facts take down if gun control advocates do not and so are less likely to burgle sedulous homes in America than occupied ones in Europe, where the residents rarely have guns.Some gun control advocates may concede these points but fall in that the cost of self-defense is self-injury Handgun owners are more likely to shoot themselves or theirloved ones than a criminal. Not quite. Most gun accidents involve rifles and shotguns, not handguns. Moreover, the rate of fatal gun accidents has been declining while the train of gun ownership has been rising. There are fatal gun accidents just as there are fatal car accidents, but in fewer than 2 percent of the gun fatalities was the victim individual mis taken for an intruder. Those who urge us to forbid or severely restrict the sale of guns ignore these facts. Worse, they collect a position that is politically absurd. In effect, they say, Your government, having failed to protect your person and your property from criminal assault, now intends to ransack you of the opportunity to protect yourself. Opponents of gun control make a different mistake. The National Rifle tie and its allies tell us that guns dont kill, people kill and urge the Government to punish more severely people who use guns to commit crimes. Locking up criminals does protect society from future crimes, and the prospect of being locked up may deter criminals. only when our experience with meting out tougher sentences is mixed.The tougher the prospective sentence the less likely it is to be imposed, or at least(prenominal) to be imposed swiftly. If the Legislature adds on time for crimes move with a gun, prosecutors often bargain away the add-ons even when the y do not, the judges in many states are reluctant to impose add-ons. Worse, the presence of a gun can contribute to the magnitude of the crime even on the part of those who worry about serving a long prison sentence. Many criminals take over guns not to rob stores but to protect themselves from other armed criminals. Gang violence has become more threatening to bystanders as clustering members have begun to arm themselves. People may commit crimes, but guns make some crimes worse. Guns often convert spontaneous outbursts of anger into fatal encounters. When some people carry them on the streets, others will want to carry them to protect themselves, and an urban arms race will be underway. OUR close SHOULD NOT BE THE disarming of law-abiding citizens. It should be to reduce the number of people who carry guns unlawfully, specially in places on streets, in taverns where the mere presence of a gun can increase the hazards we all face. The most effective way to reduce illegal gun- carrying is to encourage the police to take guns away from people who carry them without a permit. This means encouraging the police to make street frisks.The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution bans inordinate searches and seizures. In 1968 the SupremeCourt decided (Terry v. Ohio) that a frisk patting down a persons outer array is proper if the military officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous. If a pat-down reveals an object that top executive be a gun, the officer can enter the suspects pocket to remove it. If the gun is being carried illegally, the suspect can be arrested. The reasonable-suspicion test is much less stringent than the probable-cause standard the police mustinessiness admit in order to make an arrest. A reasonable suspicion, however, is more than just a hunch it must be supported by specific facts. The courts have held, not always consistently, that these facts include someone acting in a way that leads an experienced off icer to conclude criminal activity may be afoot someone fleeing at the approach of an officer a person who fits a drug messenger profile a motorist stopped for a traffic violation who has a suspicious come forth in his pocket a suspect identified by a reliable informant as carrying a gun. The Supreme Court has also upheld frisking people on probation or parole. Some police departments frisk a lot of people, but usually the police frisk rather few, at least for the purpose of detecting illegal guns. In 1992 the police arrested about 240,000 people for illegally possessing or carrying a weapon.This is only about one-fourth as many as were arrested for public drunkenness. The average police officer will make no weapons arrests and confiscate no guns during any given year. Mark Moore, a prof of public policy at Harvard University, found that most weapons arrests were made because a citizen complained, not because the police were out looking for guns. It is easy to see why. Many cities suffer from a shortage of officers, and even those with ample law-enforcement force play worry about having their cases thrown out for constitutional reasons or being accused of police harassment. just the risk of violating the Constitution or engaging in actual, as opposed to perceived, harassment can be substantially reduced. Each patrol officer can be given a list of people on probation or parole who live on that officers beat and be rewarded for making frequent sugar to insure that they are not carrying guns. Officers can be trained to recognize the kinds of actions that the Court will contain as providing the reasonable suspicion necessary for a stop and frisk.Membership in a gang known for assaults and drug dealing could be made the basis, by statute or Court precedent, for gun frisks. And modern science can be enlisted to help. Metal detectors atairports have reduced the number of plane bombings and skyjackings to nearly zero. But these detectors only work at very close r ange. What is needed is a doojigger that will enable the police to detect the presence of a large lump of metal in someones pocket from a distance of 10 or 15 feet. Receiving such a signal could translate the officer with reasonable grounds for a pat-down. Underemployed nuclear physicists and electronics engineers in the post-cold-war era surely have the talents for designing a better gun detector. Even if we do all these things, there will still be complaints. Innocent people will be stopped. Young black and Hispanic men will probably be stopped more often than older white Anglo males or women of any race. But if we are serious about reducing drive-by shootings, fatal gang wars and lethal quarrels in public places, we must get illegal guns off the street. We cannot do this by multiplying the forms one fills out at gun shops or by pretending that guns are not a problem until a criminal uses one. James Q. Wilson is a professor of public policy at U.C.L.A. His most recent book is Th e Moral Sense. ADS BY GOOGLE