Are firearms fundamental for our protection?

 

McDonald v. City of Chicago

Are Firearms Fundamental for Our Protection?

While maybe believe Otis McDonald was very courageous in his battle of McDonald v. City of Chicago, was his message true? While McDonald argued he could no longer protect his family without being able to legally own a firearm, is that the case? Many countries have strict policies gun control, and some believe the U.S. should take part in creating stricter policies. Some states are now introducing and/or signing bills that are creating stricter gun policies. Today I will be looking into the states that are creating these new policies, how they’ve affected the state’s crime, and how other countries with stricter policies crime rates compared to countries with very few restrictions on gun control.

Gun Control Inside the United States

The question of whether or not the United States should adopt stricter gun policies remains controversial, however some states have enacted bills and laws to create stricter firearm policies. The states that are said to have the highest “strictness grade” are California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Illinois. However, states like Missouri, Montana, Texas, West Virginia, and South Carolina are said to be at the bottom on the strictness grade. The states that are for the strengthening of gun control enact many laws including those that limit who can own firearms, the types of firearms that can be owned, what must be done to obtain a firearm, and many more laws.

Now you may be asking yourself, how have these laws and policies affected gun crime and crime? If we look at the gun death rate compared to the strictness grade given to states, we can see that, more often than not, states with higher grades often have a lower gun death rate than states with lower strictness grades. For example, according to Giffords Law Center, Massachusetts is the safest state, having 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000. Whereas Mississippi is the deadliest state, having 33.9-gun deaths per 100,00. If we look at their grades, we can see that Massachusetts ranks as an A- and Mississippi ranks as an F. If we look at crime in total, can see that the states with the highest crime rate, not including DC, are New Mexico, ranked C, Louisiana, ranked F, Colorado, ranked C+, and South Carolina, ranked F. We can also see that the states with the lowest crime rate include New Hampshire, ranked F, Massachusetts, ranked A-, Maine, ranked F, Idaho, ranked F, New Jersey, ranked A, and Vermont, ranked C-. As you can tell, gun control does not always lead to decreased crime rates. States like New Hampshire has loose gun laws have decreased crime, but states like New Jersey have strict gun laws also have very low crime.

Gun Control in the World

Now that the states coverage on control has been further explained, let’s take a look out how gun control affects other countries. While the states have a correlation of more gun control resulting in less crime, there were some slight discontinuities. The same could be said with the countries. While many countries with strict gun policy, such as Singapore and New Zealand, have resulted in fewer crimes, other countries with strict gun policies, such as North Korea and India, have increased crime rates and are considered more "dangerous."

While we may never have a true answer, the question of whether the United States should adopt stricter gun policies remains asked everyday by many citizens.