The recent increase in mass shootings in the U.S. has millions of people worried about personal safety and looking for the cause of this terrible problem.
Perhaps the easiest place to lay the blame is on poor gun control legislation. However, there are multiple things to consider when analyzing violent crimes like mass murders.
Keeping firearms out of the hands of potential murderers is important. However, it is unconstitutional to deprive law-abiding citizens their right to defend themselves, their families and their communities.
States have individual laws when it comes to gun control. Some are strict, others are lenient and each has their own relating crime statistics.
California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation and is continuously attempting to add to their arsenal of gun-related legislation.
Lawmakers have put together new demands that greatly limit handgun purchases, completely bans assault rifles and limits magazine size along with many other restrictions.
However, California is still experiencing a recent rise in gun-related crime since 2014, with San Bernardino becoming one of the more dangerous cities in the nation. Therefore, it is difficult to say that gun control is preventing violent crimes.
The claim that someone who wants to commit a crime with a deadly weapon will find a way to obtain one, whether it is through legal or illegal means, is true.
The church shooting that recently occurred in Texas leaves a case example for both pro-gun control and anti-gun control ideas.
Simply put, the shooter was legally able to obtain his firearm when he clearly should not have been able to do so. However, the neighboring citizen, who potentially prevented more deaths, confronted the shooter with his legally obtained AR-15, which many legislators want to ban completely.
In this case, having stricter gun laws would likely have prevented the shooter from obtaining his weapon legally. The keyword here is legally.
Gun control laws have no effect on the illegal weapons that regularly circulate through the black market. If the shooter was able to purchase a gun illegally, the only thing that increasing gun laws would have done here is prevent the law-abiding citizen from defending his community from the attack.
Gun laws, in the majority of the U.S., have led to reduced gun-related crimes.
Those statistics cannot be overlooked for the sake of opinion. However, lawmakers should carefully consider how far they are taking restrictions in order to continue to reduce crime but not hinder an individual’s ability to defend their life and the lives around them.
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