Gun Control Is Not Effective Thesis

Results in Other Countries

Canada overhauled its laws after gunman Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique college in 1989. It's now illegal to possess an unregistered handgun or any kind of rapid-fire weapon. Canada also requires training, a personal risk assessment, two references, spousal notification and criminal record checks. Government figures suggest the measures have been at least a partial success: Canada's gun homicides have plunged more than 50% since 1991, when the changes took effect, dropping from 240 that year to 138 in 2003 (Kole, 2007).

After a loner armed with assault weapons turned a scenic resort into a mass of mangled bodies and injured in 1996, Australia took quick and decisive action. Twelve days later, the government pushed through a tough ban on semiautomatic rifles.

Australia, which had been bloodied by 13 mass shootings in the 15 years that preceded the slaughter in Port Arthur, Tasmania, hasn't seen one since.

Gun control proponents say the Australian experience, and more modest successes in other nations that enacted strict gun controls after suffering mass shootings, could serve as examples to U.S. lawmakers dealing with the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre (Kole, 2007).

Britain cracked down after gun enthusiast Michael Ryan massacred 16 people and wounded 13 others in 1987 in the rural English town of Hungerford. The slaughter led to a ban on semiautomatics like Ryan's Kalashnikov rifle.

Britain has one of the world's lowest gun homicide rates -- 0.04 slayings per 100,000 people, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey for 2004. That puts Britain on par with Japan, where the rate is 0.03 per 100,000.

By contrast, the United States has a rate roughly 100 times higher: 3.42 gun murders per 100,000 people, the survey said (Kole, 2007).

Conclusion

Gun proponents argue that not only will gun control enforcement help stop crime and slow the slaughter, but that it might be only one of several levels of barriers that stop criminals from obtaining weapons. Even if a gun law by itself is not the answer, they say, adding waiting periods, registration, extensive background checks, fingerprinting, and other enforcement procedures will stem the tide.

They would ask -- rather we should do nothing?

Bibliography

Gun control. (n.d.). Retrieved May 7, 2009, from Justfacts.com: http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Kole, W. (2007, April 27). Gun control in foreign countries has mixed results. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from findarticles.com (Oakland Tribune): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070427/ai_n19063641/

Massie, M. (2009,…