Analysis Of Nicholas Kristof's Our Blind Spot About Guns

Words: 505
Pages: 3

After reading Nicholas Kristof's, "Our Blind Spot about Guns," Kristof displays a well demonstrated argument on the regulation of guns whilst comparing that to cars and drivers. Kristof reaches out to his audience by making them aware of the reduced fatality rate by regulating certain laws, which in turn lets the audience believe that that doing the same with gun laws there will also be reduced fatalities in gun crime as well. In his essay he makes this beginning statement:

"if we had the same auto fatality rate today that we had in 1921, by my calculations we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually in vehicle accidents. Instead, we've reduced the fatality by more that 95 percent not by confiscating cars, but by regulating them and their drivers sensibly"(Krisof 161).

He follows with a comment towards our own government, politicians rather, by stating he feels that they are too cowardly to regulate gun laws but will do so with our vehicles. Kristof argues that cars are regulated intelligently by requiring necessary licensing, cracking down on drunk drivers, and the upgrade and development of road engineering to reduce accidents. So, why can't gun control can't be considered the same?
…show more content…
During this time Kristof mentions in his essay that cars were killing and injuring people as well as causing accidents. He also brings our attention to a statement ma in 1910 from Robert Cousins, a former congressman, who stated: "Pedestrians are menaced every minute of the days and nights by a wanton recklessness of speed, crippling, and killing people at a rate that is appalling"(Kristof