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Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

What are some ways to solve gun violence?

Asked by Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter (587points) May 29th, 2008

I’m doing an editorial for my english class and I can’t figure out a way to solve it…or at least lessen it. It’s due tomorrow. I’m really trying my best, but I just can’t think of anything! Could I get some ideas to get the juices in my brain flowing?

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22 Answers

gailcalled's avatar

Pretty tough to sum up in an editorial. Google NRA (Nat’l Rifle Association – opinions” or NRA – pros and cons. Good luck.

eambos's avatar

Stick a flower down the barrel of every gun. Flowers make a lot of people happy (except for those with bad allergies)

My best real suggestion would be stricter gun carrying laws/policies.

Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

see the thing is, is that lots of people can make and sell them, so you can’t just like have stores stop selling them

eambos's avatar

Not just carrying as in stores selling them, I also mean gun possesion laws. sorry @gail for starting with an “and” And yes, I do understand that many guns are owned illegaly.

gailcalled's avatar

Quite acceptable to start a sentence with “and” in certain circumstances. And yes, your reply was one of them. (Emphasis, I am guessing.)

Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

But see the problem is, is that police can’t just go into people’s houses and like say do you have a gun? or oh you have a gun your under arrest. stuff like that. UGH I picked a hard subject!

marinelife's avatar

Look into things like background checks, waiting periods, requiring locked gun storage.

Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

why backround checks? huh? oh and de ja vu (i have no clue how to spell that)

eambos's avatar

Do not overthink the topic. It is an English paper, not a law paper. Get into some details but don’t delve too deep into the specifics.

Dejá vu (correct me if I’m wrong gail, my French isn’t the best)

Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

i’m screwed. my mom is basically taking over my project, I’m stressed as the devils home, and I just want to go to my flippen’ choir practice!!! MY LIFE SUCKS!!!!

gailcalled's avatar

Mrs_Dr…You have no idea of just how badly life can suck…just get a few coherent ideas together…Marina gave you three helpful ideas.

Erik. Close…déjà vu. When the “e” is pronounced like our long “a”, it gets the accent aigu(´). Interestingly, ai is also pronounced like our long a. I am not a native speaker either.

Breefield's avatar

Oh my goodness. There is nooooo way I’ll ever let my right to bear arms be taken from me. The government is sticking is fingers into every part of my life, and gun control is the one they need to stay out of most. I’m a fiscal conservative with very liberal ideas, so don’t take this as just another redneck ideal, I live in the middle of a metropolis :p
It’s just, the right to bear arms isn’t talking about hunting. It’s about protecting ourselves from the government itself.

Anyhow, that doesn’t address your question, it just addresses the comments after it.
As to your question. I think gun violence can’t be “solved” because it’s unpredictable and uncontrollable. You can’t take guns from some, but give to others because that’s unfair, and it gives the “others” direct power over those without the guns. Take gun free zones as an example. What a horrible idea! Because the only people who aren’t going to listen to those “gun free” rules, are the exact ones the rules are most directed at.

Anyhow, I think the best bet to solve gun violence is to stop dramatizing it in the minds of our children. Take army men for example, and video games (I for one am NOT opposed to video games) – you have to see that we fantasize about guns from the day we’re put in a field, given a stick, and told to entertain ourselves.

I think the parents are directly responsible for this in the end, they have quite an influence over how their child turns out, and what they fill their life with when their young and impressionable will most affect them when they’re older.

buster's avatar

people who use guns for criminal purposes should be shot in the head right after they are convicted of the crime. that will make a criminal think twice about terrorizing others with a gun. i know it sounds harsh but people who dont respect other humans lives have no place in our society.

Cardinal's avatar

Dr. If everyone carried a gun to protect themself, then the gun violence should decrease. Do you think a bully with a gun would attack anyone that he/she knew was armed. This may not be what you want to say, but it is one answer. There are no feel good answers to many ‘problems’. Get some sleep.

Wiki: The leading cause of death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes of death in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. Villent gun deaths are way down the list. They just make the headlines. In 2005 17K people killed themself with a gun, these have to be taken out of the violent death equation.

John R. Lott, Jr.
author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

Question: What does the title mean: More Guns, Less Crime?

John R. Lott, Jr.: States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such laws—called “shall-issue” laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.

Question: It just seems to defy common sense that crimes likely to involve guns would be reduced by allowing more people to carry guns. How do you explain the results?

John R. Lott, Jr. is a resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute. He was previously the John M. Olin Visiting Law and Economics Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.

Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.

Question: What is the basis for these numbers?

Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.

Question: Your argument about criminals and deterrence doesn’t tell the whole story. Don’t statistics show that most people are killed by someone they know?

Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people don’t understand is that this “acquaintance murder” number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. “Acquaintance” covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

Question: But how about children? In March of this year [1998] four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Won’t tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldn’t this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?

Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect of “shall-issue” laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent, and injuries by 82 percent.

For other types of crimes, I find that both children as well as adults are protected when law-abiding adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Finally, after extensively studying the number of accidental shootings, there is no evidence that increasing the number of concealed handguns increases accidental shootings. We know that the type of person who obtains a permit is extremely law-abiding and possibly they are extremely careful in how they take care of their guns. The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.

Question: Wouldn’t allowing concealed weapons increase the incidents of citizens attacking each other in tense situations? For instance, sometimes in traffic jams or accidents people become very hostile—screaming and shoving at one another. If armed, might people shoot each other in the heat of the moment?

Lott: During state legislative hearings on concealed-handgun laws, possibly the most commonly raised concern involved fears that armed citizens would attack each other in the heat of the moment following car accidents. The evidence shows that such fears are unfounded. Despite millions of people licensed to carry concealed handguns and many states having these laws for decades, there has only been one case where a person with a permit used a gun after a traffic accident and even in that one case it was in self-defense.

Question: Violence is often directed at women. Won’t more guns put more women at risk?

Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a woman’s ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Council Against Handgun Violence: In 2005, the U.S. firearm suicide total was 17,002, a 1.5% INCREASE from 2004 suicide deaths.

bulbatron9's avatar

God Damn Cardinal!

Just talk about why “You” shouldn’t own a gun, but everyone else should!

Cardinal's avatar

@bulbatron9 If you have a better opinion, for Dr. Hotdog, put it out there. There is no decent solutions listed above. Go for it. Many problems a free scoiety have no clear answers, ZERO. This may be one of them. This is one answer to a complex question in a free a society. Background checks are useless. Just this weekend in Seattle a guy with a gun permit shot 3 people. Turned out he was bipolar and nutty as a fruitcake. Take care Tron, I’m going to bed.

I didn’t say anything about me not owning a gun. I have a gun permit and own several guns I use at the gun range. I donot carry a gun when I go out, but my house would be a poor choice for you to break into some night.

bulbatron9's avatar

@Cardinal I had no problem with what you said!
I was referring to the length!GOD DAMN Nothing but lurve!

The second part was advice for Mrs. Dr. Hotdog!

Cardinal's avatar

@bulbatron9 Congrats on the little tax deduction coming down the pike. If you think things are tough now with him/her still in the hopper, wait for a year and I’ll check back with you. Every day will be a challenge and a joy. A baby for you and your wife/partner is truly a gift from heaven. However it may take a while for you to see it that way. But you certainly will years from now when you look back. Make sure to make the most of your time with the baby after he/she is born. C

bulbatron9's avatar

I can’t wait! My wife is about to pop! Only five weeks left! I’m having a daughter, so you know my guns are going to shine like a new penny!

EW

GD_Kimble's avatar

The vast majority of gun crimes in this country are committed with illegally obtained guns.. the solution as I see it is absolutely draconian sentencing for simple possession of ILLEGAL guns, and crimes committed with said guns could/should warrant, say… 30 years as a mandatory minimum.

witchhazel's avatar

I think Chris Rock had it right when he said they should make the price of bullets 100.00 a piece. Then you wouldn’t have any problems with stray bullets from drive bys or other shoot outs because of the cost. I thought that was a great idea!

Mrs_Dr_Frank_N_Furter's avatar

Nvm. I just changed the subject. and I finished. she is letting me turn it in late for half credit!

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