Gun Politics
Gun politics (also known as gun rights or gun control) around the world tends to revolve around what degree of control should be enforced upon the private ownership and usage of firearms, and to what extent private ownership of firearms influences crime and the balance of power between the individual and the state.
Specific locales
This article discusses these policies in a general sense. For more specific discussion of policy in specific locales, see:
Approaches
In summary, those who support greater restrictions on firearm ownership believe some subset of:
- that there is no fundamental right to own weapons
- that gun control legislation may reduce violent crime
- that guns are more dangerous to the owners than intended targets because most gun related deaths are a result of domestic violence, accidents and suicides
- that guns are often of little use as self defense for the typical owner because in the incidents where a hostile encounter with an armed criminal occurs, the criminal is usually more experienced and skilled with his/her weapon
- that even against unarmed criminals, the presence of a gun serves most often simply to escalate the likelihood and/or severity of violence
- that citizens have no need to own guns to protect themselves against crime, since this is the task of the government
- that citizens of First World countries today have no need to protect themselves against their governments if they are vigilant enough to confront government wrongdoing before violence is necessary, or that even if such a need should arise, it would be hopeless anyway to take up individual small arms against the sort of modern military technology that a government could bring to bear.
Those who favor maintaining or extending the private ownership of firearms believe some subset of:
- that owning weapons is a fundamental right
- that the government has no right to interfere with an individual's right to own firearms as long as the individual is not harming or intimidating fellow citizens
- that guns in the hands of the populace decrease crime
- that citizens have a right to self-protection
- that an armed populace decreases the overall risk of violent crime, because it provides a deterrent effect for criminals who cannot know whether their next prospective victim, or someone nearby, will turn out to be armed
- that law-abiding citizens have a responsibility to provide their own protection because governments cannot be held civilly or criminally responsible for failing to provide such protection
- that gun ownership protects citizens from the excesses of government, and provides the possibility of revolution, if necessary
Degrees of gun control
There are many areas of debate into exactly what kinds of weapons can be owned, if any, and how and where they may be used. For example, automatic rifles are legal to own in America only after acquiring numerous and expensive permits, and in the majority of countries, banned altogether; but in most states one can buy a low tech shotgun over the counter with only signing a simple form, or less. Another hot issue is whether individuals are allowed to carry a handgun concealed on their person, even if it is perfectly legal and easy to own a pistol in general.
General discussion of arguments
Balance of power
Advocates for citizens having the right to bear arms often point to totalitarian regimes that passed gun control legislation as a first step of their reign of terror. The sequence is said to be gun registration, followed some time later by confiscation. Totalitarian style governments such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist regimes such as the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China are all well known examples of this.
This does not indicate that gun control laws will always lead to totalitarianism. Many places, such as the United Kingdom and Australia have had such laws for many years without becoming totalitarian. However, it should be noted that registration of firearms in many democracies has led to confiscations of formerly legal firearms and the outlawing of the ownership of firearms to various degrees.
Some persons oppose registration of guns or licensing of gun owners because if captured, the associated records would provide military invaders with a means for locating and eliminating law-abiding (i.e. patriotic) resistance fighters. Location and capture of such records is a standard doctrine taught to military intelligence officers.
Self-defense
Main article: Guns and crime
Both sides actively debate the relevance of self-defense in modern society. Some scholars, notably John Lott, claim to have discovered a positive correlation between gun control legislation and crimes in which criminals confront citizens - that is, increases in the number or strictness of gun control laws are correlated with increases in the number or severity of violent crimes. While these findings are hotly disputed, a November 2003 study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, after a comprehensive study of all known scientific evidence about gun control legislation, it was unable to determine any measurable benefit at all from gun control laws, although the authors caution that, even after decades of such laws and studies of them, further study is needed.
The efficacy of gun control legislation at reducing the availability of guns has been challenged by, among others, the testimony of criminals that they do not obey gun control laws, and by the lack of evidence of any efficacy of such laws in reducing violent crime.
