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Nicholas Layke

Ms. Russell

CAP 10

6/3/19

The Necessity of Guns in America

1. Introduction

Every American citizen is familiar with the gun control debate. For decades, it has

polarized our country, becoming one of the most prominent political issues and the vanguard of

many politicians’ policy agendas from both sides of the aisle. Those in favor of gun control

believe that limiting a citizen’s access to firearms and other related objects, specifically assault

rifles and as large capacity magazines (LCMs), will be able to effectively lower and prevent

homicides and mass shootings. Those against it generally believe that the problem lies not with

the right to bear arms given by the second amendment of the Constitution, but with our mental

health care, and that the government should take measures to prevent the wrong person getting a

firearms rather than limiting everyone's right to do so because a small minority abuse their rights

and use guns to kill.

Both sides of the debate have good intentions, but more stringent gun control certainly

would not help prevent crime, and may even indirectly harm innocent citizens. Due to the

Second Amendment of the Constitution, the potential impact on hunting and sport shooting, and

a citizen's right to self defense, Congress should not and cannot take any new action in terms of

gun control legislation There is no evidence that gun control measures would be effective in

preventing mass shootings or homicides.

2. The Constitution & the Bill of Rights

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While drafting the constitution, our forefathers were split. The Anti-Federalists feared a

centralized government after the oppression the colonists faced from the English. The other

faction, the Federalists, decided that if their constitution was to be passed, they would have to

listen to the Anti-Federalists and include a Bill of Rights.

That Constitution, which is now the overarching legal framework of the United States,

was created to ensure that the government exist only through the consent of the governed. To

that end, the founders created the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing individual liberties and protection

from government overreach. One of the most important of these rights is the right to bear arms,

enumerated in the Second Amendment.

2.1 Why it was included in the Bill of Rights

In the years after the Revolutionary War, Americans had “great confidence toward their

militias and distrust of standing armies. Many concluded that a standing army was the tool of an

absolutist government and that the militia was the proper means for a free people to defend

against such a regime” (Dougherty).

Americans had reason to fear the power of a professional military. Standing armies had

been used for centuries to oppress people all over the world, and when the colonists came to

America, they brought with them their beliefs against standing armies. During the period under

which the Colonies were under English rule, the English troops persecuted and oppressed the

colonists, and events such as the Boston Massacre led the colonists to rebel. “Many in the

Founding generation believed that governments are prone to use soldiers to oppress the people”

(Lund, Winkler), so they felt that felt that each American should have the right to keep their own

arms to protect themselves if the government were to use soldiers to oppress rather than protect.
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Thus, the second amendment was created and used to allow for the the continuation of local

militias, and to ensure that citizens would be ready to serve in their militias if they needed.

2.2 The Second Amendment Today

Today, the militia has become obsolete. Standing armies are commonplace and there is

little distrust associated with them. Despite this, the Second Amendment is still an essential

freedom, and the individual’s right to bear arms has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, passed by the D.C. City council,

effectively banned handguns in the district, and limitations on other types of firearms were very

strict. In the Supreme Court Case District of Columbia v. Heller, many aspects of this law such

as “The ban on registering handguns and the requirement to keep guns in the home disassembled

or nonfunctional with a trigger lock mechanism violate the Second Amendment” (D.C. v Heller),

which rendered them unconstitutional. The more general impact of this case is that “the first

clause of the Second Amendment that references a “militia” is a prefatory clause that does not

limit the operative clause of the Amendment” (D.C. v Heller), which essentially means that the

supreme court has held up the right of citizens to bear arms even though militias have become

obsolete in today’s society.

3. Hunting and Sports Shooting

The right to carry in America has allowed for an extremely prosperous hunting and sport

shooting industry that millions of citizens are involved in. Gun control would severely impact

hunting and sport shooting as well as the benefits that come from these industries, such as their

economic impact, or the tax revenue that these industries generate.

3.1 Environmental/conservation Impact

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Across America, many believe that the preservation of the natural beauty of the Nation is

very important, and much of the federal conservation efforts are funded by tax revenue generated

from the sale of firearms and ammunition. In fact, “hunters and shooting sports enthusiasts help

foot the bill for roughly 60 percent of conservation efforts in this country” (Hoffman). A report

by directed by Larry Voyles, head of the Arizona Fish and Game commission, found that “An

estimated 58.8 percent ($3.3 billion) comes from hunting- and fishing-related activities, either

directly through the sale of licenses, tags, and stamps, or indirectly through federal excise taxes

on hunting, recreational shooting, and angling equipment.” Limiting the sale of guns and

ammunitions would severely deplete wildlife conservation funds, and prevent the upkeep of the

nature that is so important to Americans.

3.2 Economic Importance of Hunting

The hunting and sports shooting industries also allow for a huge amount of money to be

circulated into the economy, and limiting the sale of guns, ammunition, and other hunting and

shooting equipment would have extreme economic repercussions, both publicly and privately.

“The total economic impact of hunting and target shooting combined equates to $110 billion,”

and furthermore “Some $15 billion in taxes are generated by hunting and target shooting, and

these activities account for a whopping $48 billion in retail sales” (Economic Impact of Hunting

and Shooting). Limiting gun sales would cause extreme negative impacts on the economy

nationwide, and would limit tax revenues essential to the federal government’s budget.

4. Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs)

Self defense is one of the most important arguments for the modern right to bear arms.

Despite the fact that there is no longer a need for citizens to protect themselves in the form of a

militia, crime is still commonplace and it is essential that citizens be able to protect themselves in
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whatever situation they may find themselves in. Many believe that “the risks of owning a gun

outweigh the benefits of having one in the rare case where you might need to defend yourself”

(Raphelson), but this is incorrect. The CDC conducted a survey to document the amount of

DGUs taking place annually in the U.S. “Surveys generally yielded annual estimates of the

number of DGUs by adults against other persons in the 1-3 million range” (Kleck). The “CDC’s

survey data confirm previous high estimates of DGU prevalence, disconfirm estimates derived

from the National Crime Victimization Survey, and indicate that defensive uses of guns by crime

victims are far more common than offensive uses by criminals” (Kleck). This is a hugely

important statistic that gun control advocates deliberately ignore. It indicates that if more gun

control measures were passed, they would effectively disarm innocent citizens that use their

firearms to protect themselves and others from armed and violent criminals. Were these people

to be disarmed, more lives would be lost, and citizens would be left defenseless.

4.1 DGUs Compared to Criminal Uses

The amount of annual DGUs outnumbers the amount of crime related gun uses in

America, further proving why it is essential that we retain the right to bear arms. Compared to

the estimated amount of of DGUs “in the 1-3 million range” (Kleck), “There were 39,773 gun

deaths in 2017” (Mervosh). This number of gun deaths alone is dwarfed by the amount of

DGUs. If one takes into account that “In 2017, about 60 percent of gun deaths were suicides,

while about 37 percent were homicides” (Mervosh), then the number of homicidal gun deaths

equates to only 14,771, far less than the estimated millions of DGUs. Even at its most extreme

minimum, the amount of DGUs per year as estimated by the CDC is still hundreds of thousands

more uses than the total amount of gun deaths in 2017. Gun control legislation would primarily

aim to prevent homicides, which accounted for only 14, 771 of the total deaths in 2017.
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Some may argue that there are far more criminal gun uses per year that are not lethal than

those that result in a death, and that is true, but even in non-lethal crimes committed with a gun,

the lowest CDC estimate of DGUs still doubles criminal gun uses. “According to the National

Crime Victimization Survey, 467,321 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm

in 2011” (National Institute of Justice). More preventative gun control measures would end up

disarming citizens protecting their own lives and the lives of others. Additionally, it would do

essentially nothing to prevent crimes committed with guns, for if a criminal is going to break the

law with a gun, they will break the law to get a gun.

5. Ineffectiveness of Gun Control

No one in the gun control debate wants more lives to be lost, and the reason it is such a

polarizing issue is because the stakes are the loss of human life. Unfortunately, many of the gun

control measures proposed to prevent homicides and mass shootings are simply not effective.

One of the most common gun control measures proposed is a ban on assault style weapons and

LCM, but neither of these measures would be effective. Assault style weapons have been

demonized in today’s America, but what many gun control advocates do not know is that “Six

out of every 10 mass public shootings are carried out by handguns alone, while only one in 10 is

committed with a rifle alone” (Malcolm, Swearer). The RAND corporation conducted a study on

various gun control measures, and they found that “Evidence for the effect of assault weapon

bans on total homicides and firearm homicides is inconclusive.” The same study also found

LCMs, licensing and permitting requirements, and minimum age requirements to be

inconclusive, furthermore solidifying that many favorited gun control measures have no evidence

to back them, and that gun control legislation would be inconsequential in the occurrences of gun

deaths and gun related crimes.

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A ban on LCMs, which is one of the most popular gun control proposals, would limit the

amount of rounds per magazine and theoretically force a shooter to reload more often, hopefully

slowing them down and allowing for a chance for disarming or other means of stopping the

shooter. This would most likely be ineffective because “LCMs are known to have been used in

less than one third of 1% of mass shootings” (Kleck). The same study, conducted by Gary Kleck,

found that “ of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs

were known to have been used, … there was only one incident in which the shooter may have

been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.” Furthermore, there was

evidence that if the same shooting occurred without large capacity magazines, the result would

have been the same. “In all of these 23 incidents, the shooter possessed either multiple guns or

multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing

without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or changing smaller loaded

magazines with only a 2- to 4-seconds delay for each magazine change,” which would not slow

the shooter at all, as “mass shooters maintain such slow rates of fire that the time needed to

reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective

victims to escape.”

Even the widely popular measure of more strict background checks would be ineffective,

as “straw purchases are one of the main ways that criminals acquire firearms” (McHale). Straw

purchases are when a person that is able to pass a federal background check buys a gun and

supplies it to another individual that would not be able to purchase the firearm themself. If the

original transaction is not done by those who commit the crimes, background checks would not

affect the accessibility of guns through straw purchases. Despite good intentions, gun control
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measures would do little to prevent gun violence in America, and would have more adverse

effects than beneficial ones.

6. Conclusion

Gun control is an issue that has torn Americans apart, and it does not seem to be slowing

down. No matter what people think ideologically, no one can deny that the Constitution allows

for the right to bear arms, and any further gun control measure is a direct attack on the

Constitutional freedoms granted to every citizen, depriving them of their fundamental right to

protect themselves. Taxation on guns also provide essential funds to wildlife conservation efforts

and national parks, and not only would limiting guns deprive these funds, it would also deplete

the U.S. economy of billions of dollars circulating due to gun related businesses. While some

think that limiting citizen’s access to guns will prevent death and lower crime rates, the number

of DGUs compared to crimes committed with guns shows that guns are more commonly used for

lawful purposes then not, and if someone is going to be committing a crime with a gun, they

likely will not follow the law concerning if it is legal for them to get a gun or not in the first

place. The Constitution, the impact on hunting and sport shooting industries, and a citizen’s right

to self defense are all reason why congress should pass no new gun control legislation.
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Works Cited

"District of Columbia v. Heller." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290. Accessed 15 May.

2019.

Dougherty, Chuck. “The History of the Militia in the United States.” University of Dayton,

University of Dayton, 2002,

academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/Bioterrorism/8Military/milita01.htm.

Hoffman, Gabriella. “Gun Control Is a Sure Way to Hurt Conservation Efforts.” The Hill,

Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., 13 June 2018,

thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/391916-gun-control-is-a-sure-way-to-hurt-conservation-

efforts.

“Gun Violence.” National Institute of Justice, 2011,

www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/pages/welcome.aspx.

“How Gun Policies Affect Violent Crime.” RAND Corporation,

www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/violent-crime.html.

Kleck, Gary. “What Do CDC's Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?”

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018, doi:10.2139/ssrn.3194685.

Kleck, Gary. “Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The

Plausibility of Linkages” Justice Research and Policy, vol. 17(1) 28-47, 2016.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1525107116674926

Lund, Nelson, and Adam Winkler. “The 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” National

Constitution Center – The 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,

constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-ii.

McHale, Tom. “Buying and Selling a Firearm: Straw Purchases.” NRA Blog, National Rifle
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Association, 13 June 2016,

www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/7/buying-and-selling-firearms-part-6-straw-purchases/.

Malcolm, John, and Amy Swearer. “6 Reasons Gun Control Will Not Solve Mass Killings.” The

Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, 16 May 2018,

www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/6-reasons-gun-control-will-not-solve-mass-killin

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Raphelson, Samantha. “How Often Do People Use Guns In Self-Defense?” NPR, NPR, 13 Apr.

2018,www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people-use-guns-in-self-defens

e.

Swearer, Amy, and Peyton Smith. “Latest News of Self-Defense With Firearms Contradicts Gun

Control Rhetoric.” The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation, 9 Apr. 2019,

www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/latest-news-self-defense-firearms-contradicts-gu

n-control-rhetoric.

U.S. Constitution. Amend. II