Guns: Means of Protection or Destruction?
Who doesn’t love action movies? Explosions, shots, fights, and more explosions. Some of these movies try to simulate real life, but most of the time they incite one of our animalistic instincts, violence. As a result of this instinct, men have invented all kinds of things to protect themselves. One of these inventions still brings harm and is constantly a theme of debate: guns. So the main question is, are they protecting or destroying society? Although they are the most dangerous weapon an ordinary person can have, guns are the most effective way to protect ourselves and this essay will show why.
Some countries around the world have really strong gun control laws such as Brazil, for example. Research shows that more people are killed every year in Brazil with guns than anywhere else in the world, including most of the world’s war zones combined. Venezuela is another example, even with strict gun laws, the violence increases every year. Both Brazil, Venezuela, and many other governments around the world are unable to protect their citizens from the growing number of illegal weapons. This happens because of the lack of ability of the system to control the black market of firearms.
On the other hand, countries such as the United States – where citizens are allowed to have a gun – has seen a decrease of murders and violence, although the number of guns per person has increased. In this case, we can see that the use of guns by ordinary people can contribute to our self-defense, and to avoid attempts of crime.
Despite that, there are specialists who defend the use of stricter laws regarding the use of guns. Recent events have shown that the same ordinary people that can protect their houses from thieves and murders, can kill without any reason. The easy access to buy guns in the United States, for instance, has been a constant theme of debate since the number of mass shootings have been increasing in the last few years.
Another relevant factor is that with more availability of guns more people are compelled to kill, commit crimes of passion, and suicide. Other developed countries can serve as an example of the benefits of gun control, such as the United Kingdom and Japan. These countries have a low index of gun homicides and mass shootings. However, five years after a series of laws to enforce gun control were implemented in Australia, data show that although the index of homicides decreased, the index of homicides, kidnapping, and sexual rapes increased. This data shows that strict gun control is not the solution to lower crime rate.
(Charts taken from Lifehacker blog page)
Essentially, despite being a destructive weapon, guns can guarantee our protection. We are all subject to the instinct of violence that every human being has, and in order to protect ourselves from such threats we have to have the right to use guns, as long as we are able, and in the psychological condition, to do so.
By Eduardo Martins
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Really like this article. It is nice to explain all the sides of some problem, but after that it gets really hard to find a really good solution, especially for counties where violence is almost part of the culture.