Handguns Should Not Be Banned Handguns - 1677 Words

Gun violence, especially that as caused by handguns, is a major problem in America. It affects millions of people annually, and the effects it has are irreversible. However, this reality does not constitute for a complete ban on the private ownership of handguns. A ban on the private ownership of handguns should not be enacted on the grounds that the United States government ought to preserve democratic legitimacy and constitutionalism, and a ban is not feasible or just in America’s political climate. Every day, 282 people are shot in the United States but this is not merely the result of the array of firearms available in this country. Instead, a minority of the guns that Americans own are responsible for much of this violence.†¦show more content†¦Wintemute and Teret, professors at Johns Hopkins University attribute this to the shame associated with mental health in America. Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveals that from 1990 to 1997, 90,000 of the 147,000 suicides committed were committed with a firearm―a tribute to the handgun’s operational simplicity and effectivity. Overall, handguns are responsible for seventy percent of firearm suicides. Douglas Wiebe of the University of California-Los Angeles School of Public Health conducted a nationally representative study which revealed that ninety-four percent of gun-related suicides would not have occurred had a gun not been present. A motley of international examples provide proof of concept for a national handgun ban. For example, the Australian prime minister announced in 1996 that Australia would be enacting a national handgun ban, and guns would be collected through a gun buyback program. This resulted in the confiscation of 650,000 guns, a forty-two percent drop in the homicide rate, and a fifty-seven percent drop in the firearm suicide rate. In addition, no mass shootings have occurred since the ban, a sharp contrast to the thirteen shootings that took place in the thirteen years before. The homicide rate also fell to less than one per one hundred thousand, while the United States’ hovers at five per one hundred thousand. Professor Donahue of Stanford University attributes this to â€Å"more than merely the