The United States, a country of dreams for millions of people all over the globe.

People want to come to this country for studying, jobs, treatment, vacation and so on. I
myself is one of the so many students who moved to this country for studying in one of
the world best colleges this country has. After I moved to the United States, I started
knowing different things about this country, and one of the things that astonished me
most is the high rate of gun death in this country. As mentioned in an article written by
Kevin Qualey and Margot Sanger-Katz, two of the journalists working for The New York
Times, 31 out of 1 million people die in gun homicides in the United States, and this rate
of gun death is way higher than any other rich western countries. As it is expected, this
high rate of gun death in the United States has become a serious concern for its
citizens, and they want to get rid of this problem very badly. However, how can they get
rid of this problem? The answer to this question has created a big debate all over the
country. From the people who are involved in this debate, there are those who say that
guns should be banned for the civilians, and there are people who say that guns
shouldn’t be banned for the civilians. Both sides have their own arguments, but they
don’t seem to be convincing to the opposite side.

The side which believes that it should be illegal for the civilians to own guns
brings up several arguments to prove their belief to be correct. A journalist named
Christopher Ingraham claims that many gun violent experts believe that the government
should bring the federal assault weapons ban like the 1994-2004 time period. In order
the explain why many gun violent experts believe that, Ingraham cites statistic from
Louis Clarevas’s book called “Rampage Nation” and states, “Compared with the 10-year
period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37
percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But
after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent
increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.” So here
Ingraham is trying to prove that allowing the civilians to own guns is the reason for the
high rate of gun death. After conducting a joint experiment with his colleagues, David
Hemenway, a professor in Harvard University writes, “More than 42% of the time, the
victim took some action — maced the offender, yelled at the offender, struggled, ran
away, or called the police. Victims used a gun in less than 1% of the incidents
(127/14,145). In other words, actual self-defense gun use, even in our gun-rich country,
is rare.” So here Hemenway is trying to prove that people use guns very rarely in self
defense. He specifically talks about how useful guns are in women’s self defense and
tries to proof that guns aren’t very useful in protecting women as well. As he reports in
his article, out of more than 300 women who were sexually assaulted, the number of
women who used a gun in self defense is zero. He also cites a study and claims that,
out of 1100 sexual assaults committed in the previous ten years, the victim used a gun
for self defense in only one occasion.

So, we can see that the side which believes that guns should be banned for the
civilians have several interesting arguments for their position, and the most notable
aspect of their arguments is they mention statistics with sources which make these
statistics more believable. The first argument of them that’s found in Ingraham’s article,
that gun homicide rate dropped by 37 percent compared to the past ten years when
assault weapons were banned in 1994, seems to be a very strong argument. This
statistic explicitly shows that allowing civilians to own assault weapons is responsible for
the high rate of gun homicide in the United States. As for the arguments of Hemenway,
the first two statistics he mentions can be considered very strong and convincing. He
cites from his own experiment and tries to prove that guns aren’t significantly useful in
self defense. This statistic refutes one of the main arguments of the gun advocates and
that is owning guns are necessary for the civilians for defending themselves. As for the
second statistic of Hemenway, then it’s authenticity can be doubted because he didn’t
mention its source. Nevertheless, the arguments of Ingraham and Hemenway are very
strong as a whole because these arguments not only proves that allowing the civilians
to own guns are unhelpful but also very harmful.
As we discussed the side which wants guns to be banned, now we have another
side which is against banning guns. They claim that owning guns is the right of the
civilians, and the second amendment gives them this right. Joan Biskupic, an American
journalist and lawyer cites from the U.S Today’s poll that, three-fourths of the Americans
believe that the second amendment gives individual right to own a gun. This group
which advocates for the right of owning guns for the civilians have other arguments as
well. James Q. Wilson, who teaches Public Policy at Pepperdine University, gives
several reasons why gun control is not the answer. He writes, “However, there is no
way to extinguish this supply of guns. It would be constitutionally suspect and politically
impossible to confiscate hundreds of millions of weapons. You can declare a place gun-
free, as Virginia Tech had done, and guns will still be brought there.” So here we can
see that Wilson thinks banning guns wouldn’t help because it’s not possible to take
away so many guns that are owned by the United States’ citizens, so these guns would
remain with them even after the ban. Wilson also thinks that guns play a good role in
self-defense, he writes, “It's also important to note that guns play an important role in
selfdefense. Estimates differ as to how common this is, but the numbers are not trivial.
Somewhere between 100,000 and more than 2 million cases of self-defense occur
every year.”

After reading the arguments that the gun advocates use to defend their position,
the strongest argument out of all of them seems to be the last one, means the claim that
guns play a good role in self-defense. However, the statistic Wilson gives to prove that
guns play a good role in self-defense can be questioned because he didn’t mention the
source of this, and this uncited statistic doesn’t deserve to be relied upon more then
Hemenway’s statistic which is mentioned with its source and which proves something
opposite to what Wilson claims. The first argument of the gun advocates – owning guns
is a right of the civilians assured by the second amendment – has weakness in it as
well. This is because, as it’s found in an article written by an American author and
journalist called Jonathan Rauch, there is a disagreement about whether the second
amendment legalizes guns for the civilians or for the well-regulated militia. So the
statement of the second amendment isn’t explicit and can be interpreted differently.
Moreover, using the second amendment for demanding the right of owning guns for the
civilians doesn’t sound to be a strong argument if guns can’t be proven to be beneficial
in self-defense and to be harmless for the innocent people. As for the second argument,
that banning guns wouldn't work because the amount of guns owned by the Americans
is too many and the criminals can lend and steal guns from others, also doesn't seem to
be very strong since we already came across the statistic that was mentioned by
Ingraham from Clarevas’s book, and that is after the banning of assault weapons in
1994, the rate of gun death dropped by 37 percent compared to the last 10 years before
the ban.

In conclusion, the gun laws in the United States should be based on the interest
of its citizens. If allowing the civilians to own guns brings up something beneficial for
them, then they should be allowed to own guns. However, If allowing the civilians to
own guns put people’s lives in risk, then guns should be banned regardless of what the
second amendment says about gun right. This is because whatever is written in the
second amendment, its goal was to protect the citizens of America. The people who are
engaged in the debate regarding banning guns, they also should think about what is
good for the United State’s citizens before everything. They shouldn’t be influenced by
any political or nonpolitical party or organization which has any particular interest in this
issue which is different from the public interest. As for the government, they should
evaluate the words of all the sides who have different opinions regarding gun laws and
then make the best decision. Hopefully, this will solve the problem of the high rate of
gun deaths in the United States.

Hemenway, David. “Does Owning a Gun Make You Safer?” Los Angeles Times, 4 Aug. 2015,
www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0804-hemenway-defensive-gun-home-20150730-
story.html.

Ingraham, Christopher. “It’s Time to Bring Back the Assault Weapons Ban, Gun
Violence Experts Say.” The Washington Post, 15 Feb. 2018,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/15/its-time-to-bring-back-the-assault-
weapons-ban-gun-violence-experts-say/?utm_term=.7a7d3186924f.
Joan Biskupic. “Do You Have a Legal Right to Own a Gun?” USA Today. EBSCOhost,
ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=J0E290572586108&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 3
Feb. 2019.

Quealy, Kevin, and Margot. “Comparing Gun Deaths by Country: The U.S. Is in a
Different World.” The New York Times, 13 June 2016,
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-death-rates-the-us-is-in-a-
different-world.html.

Wilson, James Q. “Gun Control Isn't the Answer.” Los Angeles Times, 20 Apr. 2007,
www.latimes.com/la-oe-wilson20apr20-story.html.