THIS HOUSE WOULD LIMIT
THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
Gun laws vary
widely from country to country, so this topic focuses upon arguments for
tightening gun laws in principle. Particular debates might centre upon
different categories of guns (for example automatic weapons, handguns or
shotguns), licensing requirements for ownership, the right to carry concealed
weapons, or requirements that manufacturers increase the safety features on
their weapons.
Because the USA
is exceptional in protecting the right to own firearms in the Second Amendment
to its Constitution, and gun control has been a major issue in American
politics over the last few years, partly due to a series of tragic massacres
involving children, it is likely to be the focus of this sort of motion.
By contrast, in
the UK gun ownership is extremely low, as is the gun homicide rate.[1] After a couple of high profile
incidents (including the Dunblane Massacre), private gun ownership was almost
completely banned[2], to the point where the UK Olympic
shooting team have to train in Switzerland. A couple of high profile
shooting sprees in recent years by Derrick Bird[3] and Raul Moat[4] have again raised the issue of whether
the UK’s gun laws need further tightening, or are already so harsh that they
restrict legitimate usage while doing nothing to prevent criminality. The
best way to run this debate in the UK would be to reverse the premise.
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Point
For
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Point
Against
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The
only function of a gun is to kill
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Gun
ownership is an integral aspect of the right to self defence
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The
legal ownership of guns by ordinary citizens inevitably leads to many
accidental deaths
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Gun
ownership increases national security within democratic states
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Sports
shooting desensitizes people to the lethal nature of firearms
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Sports
shooting is a safe activity
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Gun
ownership increases the risk of suicide
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Effective
gun control is not achievable in democratic states with a tradition of
civilian gun ownership
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[1] Home Office Statistical Bulletin,
‘Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2009/10’,http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs11/hosb0111.pdf
[3] The Guardian, ‘Twelve killed in Cumbria
shooting spree’ 2nd June 2010http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/02/gunman-sought-person-shot-dead-whitehaven
Point For
(1) The only function of a gun is to kill
Point
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Counterpoint
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The
only function of a gun is to kill. The more instruments of death and injury
can be removed from our society, the safer it will be. In the U.S.A. death by
gunshot has become the leading cause of death among some social groups; in
particular for African-American males aged from 12 to 19 years old.[1] Quite simply, guns are lethal and
the fewer people have them the better.
[1‘Study: Homicide leading
cause of death among young black males, Jacksonville.com, 5 May 2010,http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2010-05-05/story/study-homicide-leading-cause-death-among-young-black-males
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Prohibition is not the answer, especially not
in countries such as the USA where gun ownership is such an entrenched aspect
of society. Banning guns would not make them disappear or make them any less
dangerous. It is a legitimate right of citizens to own weapons with which
they can protect themselves, their family, and their property (see point 4).
Many people also need guns for other reasons. For example, farmers need guns
in order to protect their stock and crops from pests, e.g. rabbits, birds,
deer, foxes, stray dogs attacking sheep, etc.
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(2) The legal ownership of guns by ordinary citizens inevitably leads to
many accidental deaths
Point
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Counterpoint
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The legal ownership of guns by
law-abiding citizens inevitably leads to many unnecessary and tragic deaths.
Legally held guns are stolen and end up in the hands of criminals, who would
have greater difficulty in obtaining such weapons if firearms were less
prevalent in society. Guns also end up in the hands of children, leading to
tragic accidents and terrible disasters such as the Columbine High School
massacre in the U.S.A. Sometimes even normal-seeming registered gun owners
appear to go mad and kill, as tragically happened at Hungerford and Dunblaine
in the U.K.
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Guns don’t kill people – people kill people.
Restricting gun ownership will do nothing to make society safer as it is the
intent of the criminal we should fear, and that will remain the same whatever
the gun laws. In the vast majority of crimes involving firearms, the gun used
is not legally held or registered. Many of illegal weapons are imported
secretly from abroad, or converted from replica firearms rather than being
stolen from registered owners.
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(3) Sports shooting desensitizes people to the lethal nature of firearms
Point
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Counterpoint
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Shooting as a sport desensitises people
to the lethal nature of all firearms, creating a gun culture that glamorises
and legitimises unnecessary gun ownership. It remains the interest of a
minority, who should not be allowed to block the interests of society as a
whole in gun control. Compensation can be given to individual gun owners, gun
clubs and the retail firearms trade, in recognition of their economic loss if
a ban is implemented.
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Shooting
is a major sport enjoyed by many law-abiding people, both in gun clubs with
purpose-built ranges and as a field sport. These people have the right to
continue with their chosen leisure pursuit, on which they have spent large
amounts of money – an investment the government would effectively be
confiscating if their guns were confiscated. In addition, field sports bring
money into poor rural economies and provide a motivation for landowners to
value environmental protection. While compensation could be given the cost
would be huge; in the UK shootings value to the economy was £1.6billion in
2004.[1]
[1] ‘£1,600,000,000 – the value of
shooting’,Shooting Times,
27 September 2006,http://www.shootingtimes.co.uk/news/96001/pound1600000000__the_value_of_...
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(4) Gun ownership increases the risk of suicide
Point
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Counterpoint
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There is a correlation between the laxity
of a country’s gun laws and its suicide rate – not because gun owners are
more depressive, but because the means of quick and effective suicide is
easily to hand. As many unsuccessful suicides are later glad that they failed
in their attempt, the state should discourage and restrict the ownership of
something that wastes so many human lives.
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There
are substantial exceptions to that correlation, for example Japan has the
world’s 5th highest
suicide rate but very low gun ownership.[1]
As the proposition concedes, the availability of firearms is not
a direct cause of suicide and thus the restriction of availability of
firearms can only have a marginal effect on the suicide rate.
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Point Against
(1) Gun ownership is an integral aspect of the right to self defence
Point
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Counterpoint
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Law-abiding citizens deserve the right to
protect their families in their own homes, especially if the police are
judged incapable of dealing with the threat of attack. Would-be rapists and
armed burglars will think twice before attempting to break into any house
where the owners may keep firearms for self-defence. (This can also be
applied to the right to carry concealed weapons, deterring potential rapists,
muggers, etc.)
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Burglary
should not be punished by vigilante killings. No amount of property is worth
a human life. Perversely, the danger of attack by homeowners may make it more
likely that criminals will carry their own weapons. If a right to
self-defence is granted in this way, many accidental deaths are bound to
result.
Moreover the value of guns for self-defence is overrated.
A firearm kept in the home for self-defence is six times more likely to be
used in a deliberate or accidental homicide than against an unlawful intruder.[1]
[1] Drinan, Robert F. ‘Gun Control: The
Good Outweighs the Evil’. The Civil Liberties Review. August/September
1976 http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Drinan1.html
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(2) Gun ownership increases national security within democratic states
Point
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Counterpoint
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“A
well-regulated Militia, being necessary top the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” – 2nd
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[1] Any country is much more able
to defend itself from aggression if many of its citizens are able to use
guns, keeping them for leisure and sporting use. Some countries actively
require adult citizens to maintain weapons in their house, and periodically
to train in their use. The high levels of firearm availability in
Iraq and Afghanistan have been significant contributory factors in allowing
for a viable insurrection to form which has the potential to generate the
political pressure necessary to cause the withdrawal of foreign occupiers.
Of course, such widespread ownership of weapons is also a
safeguard against domestic tyranny.
[1] See also DIstricxt
of Columbia v Heller,554 U.S. 570 (2008)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
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The 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
was written in the age of horse and musket, where a private citizen could
gain access to the same (or even better) weaponry that the state did.
Unless the opposition want to remove all barriers on gun
ownership completely, no armed citizenry can seriously compete with a modern
military armed with tanks, drones and precision weaponry. Popular
resistance movements rely upon creating an unaffordable political cost to
maintaining the occupation (e.g. The US was eventually forced from Vietnam,
despite winning virtually every major battle of the war), but this assumes
that the occupying power is vulnerable to that kind of pressure. An
undemocratic invader or a domestic tyranny will happily slaughter dissidents
with impunity (see the pre-intervention stages of the Libyan civil-war and
the 2011 Syrian uprising).
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(3) Sports shooting is a safe activity
Point
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Counterpoint
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Shooting is sport enjoyed by many
law-abiding people, both in gun clubs with purpose-built ranges and as a
field sport. These people have the right to continue with their chosen
leisure pursuit, on which they have spent large amounts of money – an
investment the government would effectively be confiscating if their guns
were confiscated.
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Shooting as a sport has the potential to
desensitize people to the lethal nature of all firearms, creating a gun
culture that glamorizes and legitimizes unnecessary gun ownership.
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(4) Effective gun control is not achievable in democratic states with a
tradition of civilian gun ownership
Point
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Counterpoint
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Much
like the failure of the prohibition era to stop alcohol consumption, trying
to restrict the use of guns that are already widely owned and prevalent in a
society is an impossible task.[1]
The people who intend to use guns for illegitimate purposes
are obviously unconcerned with the fact that it is illegal to acquire the
guns in the first place in countries where this is already the case such as
in the UK .[2][3]
[1] Kates, Don B. ‘Why a Civil
Libertarian Opposes Gun Control’. The Civil Liberties Review. June/July 1976http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Kates1.html
[2] The Independent. ‘Up to 4m guns in
UK and police are losing the battle’. 4thSeptember 2005.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/up-to-4m-guns-in-uk-and-police-are-losing-the-battle-505487.html
[3] The Guardian. ‘Firearms: cheap, easy
to get and on a street near you’ 30th August 2008.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/30/ukcrime1
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Limited
restrictions on ownership and use are different in nature to absolute
prohibition and are more easily enforced.
Statistical analysis shows that that gun control laws do have a
deterrent effect on firearm deaths and that the magnitude of the effect is
dependent on how well the rules are enforced.[1]
The ineffectiveness of badly drafted or enforced gun control regulations is
not an indicator of the ineffectiveness of well drafted and enforced
regulations.
[1] Kwon et al. ‘The effectiveness of
gun control laws: multivariate statistical analysis’, The American Journal of
Economics and Sociology. Jan 1997.
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FURTHER READING
Roleff, Tamara. ‘Gun Control (Opposing Viewpoints).
Greenhaven. 2007
Bruce, John. ‘The Changing Politics of Gun Control’. Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers. 1998.
Cook, Philip J. ‘Gun Violence: The Real Costs (Studies in Crime
and Public Policy)’. Oxford University Press. 2002
Cornell, Saul. ‘A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers
and the Origins of Gun Control in America’. Oxford Universitry Press. 2008.
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