Taking Shots at Gun Control

By: Emelia Richling

Advertised as a panacea for the mass shootings heard around the world, gun control is widely advocated for by those who believe that guns don’t have a place in our society. For many years, the topic of gun control has been under fire because it fails to provide citizens with the safety they seek.

If gun control actually stopped criminals and made the world safe, there would be no controversy. However, the reality is that gun control laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining guns illegally. If someone is already committing a homicide, the minor gun control laws will have no significance to them.

According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study, in the 62 mass shootings in the United States from 1982 to 2012, 49 of the guns were obtained illegally through means such as the black market or from stealing the firearms from friends and gun stores.

There is a problem, but it isn’t what we think it is. Many citizens have no knowledge of the massive black market that has allowed criminals to easily obtain guns. The black market is the exact problem that we need to address.

The problem is not the guns themselves but how the users obtain the weapons. Controlling the mass majority of citizens by implementing gun control isn’t the answer; we need to address the few citizens who are illegally obtaining firearms and murdering people with them.

Statistically, however, it may appear that states with the harshest gun control laws have the least number of deaths per 100,000 people, as a study from the World Population Review found in 2019. If the statistics are dissected, it proves that the numbers are very misleading. The study considers suicide death rates, which account for more than two times the homicide death rates.

If just the homicide death rates per capita are considered, states with the harshest gun control laws, such as Nevada, New Mexico and California, suffer from high rates of homicides. States with less strict gun laws, such as South Dakota and Maine, have lower rates of homicides. To support these statistics, a study from the Applied Economics Letter, an academic journal, found that “assault weapon bans did not significantly affect murder rates.”

However, if these statistics are used to disprove gun control, it is imperative to note that states with loose gun control laws and high rates of homicide deaths by a firearm have other factors that influence the alarming number of deaths.

Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi follow the atypical trend of high homicide rates and less strict gun control, but their numbers are influenced by socioeconomic factors, such as lower-income households and worse education. Therefore, the high number of deaths by firearm are not related to relaxed gun restrictions, meaning that gun control is fairly ineffective.

For so long, we have been taught that gun control is the solution to the staggering gun violence rates in the United States, but the problem is deeper than what we have been told. Our freedom and our rights don’t need to be taken away in order to solve this issue. If we focus on the root of the problem, it becomes apparent that the solution does not involve taking away the people’s means of protection.

An article published by The Atlantic, entitled “A Case Against Gun Control,” stated that we continue to blame “an inanimate item instead of the user.” In the simplest terms, the argument against gun control is derived from the fact that guns aren’t the problem, so placing restrictions on the object won’t stop the people from being the issue.

Since such a large number of people who commit homicides are obtaining guns from the black market, change has to happen at the source. A federal program needs to be funded that undergoes further investigation into the black market. Putting an end to this market is the only way to control homicide rates.

Implementing gun control doesn’t control guns and certainly doesn’t control criminals. If homicide rates are going to fall, the black market has to fall first.