Thursday, November 10, 2016

A third reason why we should not ban guns is that it ultimately punishes law-abiding citizens who would lose their right to own guns and their ability to protect themselves.
Banning guns would only hurt law abiding citizens because several countries that have done it are way worse off in terms of crime than the United States. An example of this is Australia. Australia banned most semi and pump action guns as well as severely restricted handguns in response to the Port Arthur massacre. One other things was licensing of all gun owners, including that self-defense was not a reason to obtain a license. Because people have had most self-defense weapons banned and the remaining guns they have cannot be used for defense, the people of Australia are defenseless. The website Nation master allows you to compare all kinds of statistics of other countries and I found this. Australia has in terms of population size, twice as many robbery victims, twice as many assault victims, twice as many burglaries, and three times as many rape victims as the United States ("Australian vs United States Crime Stats Compared." NationMaster.com. NationMaster, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.). Not only that, but after the gun ban; Port Arthur has not been the only massive loss of life in Australia. The gun ban did not deter people who wished to do evil because there have been eleven massacres in Australia since the gun ban. It has been a mixture of Shootings (Monash University Shooting, 2011 Hectorville siege, Hunt family murders, Logan shooting, Sydney Siege, and the Ingleburn Shooting), stabbing and melee attacks (Lin family murders and Cairns child), and arson attacks (Churchill Fire and Quakers Hill Nursing Home Fire), so it proves that the law does not stop people who wish to do others harm. This shows that you are much safer in a country that you can defend yourself in.

It is also clear that limiting the size of gun magazines will hurt and endanger law-abiding citizens. In the article "A Ban On Assault Weapons Would Not Reduce Crime" edited by Noel Merino, it was brought up that "While a police officer can carry extra magazines on his duty belt, and have a rifle or shotgun in his patrol car, and call for back-up, a private citizen attacked in a parking lot, or at home in the middle of the night, will probably have only the magazine within the firearm. No one should be arbitrarily limited in the number of rounds he or she can have for self-defense."(ic.galegroup.com, Merino).


Not only that it would hurt law-abiding citizens who use guns for defense; gun bans also affect hunters, target shooters, and collectors. Bans that go as far as Australia's would ban semi and Pump action shotguns; guns that many Americans, including myself use for hunting and target shooting. Strict gun laws and bans only hurt the innocent and do nothing to criminals

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