Persuasive Essay On Why Guns Are Bad

Words: 476
Pages: 2

In most cases, people will buy a gun in order to protect their innocent and otherwise defenseless loved ones. Approximately one in three Americans own a gun for the purpose of self defense. Generally, these citizens live in cities with higher crime rates so a gun is purchased because there is no apparent harm with having an unloaded, hidden handgun in case of emergencies. While the intentions of gun owning are to defend from home invaders or assailants, the freedom to own guns is abused and guns are more commonly utilized with intentions to harm. Gun owners may argue that the safety of their homes and families are of greater value than the dangers which firearms potentially impose. Unfortunately, the ease of the gun purchasing process allows for many guns to go into the wrong hands, leading to an alarming …show more content…
As a result of the fact that handguns are the easiest to access (in comparison to larger guns such as semi-automatic rifles), the five most commonly owned guns are “small, lightweight, concealable” handguns, which poses a danger to the innocent public when the wielders are criminals (Swanberg). Of course, in the hands of those with intent to protect, the guns are much less likely to be dangerous, but if we made these handguns more inconvenient to purchase, it is likely that it would deter, or at least slow down, the rate of homicide and other gun-related crime in America. According to the Violence Policy Center, a 2010 study displayed 230 national cases of lawfully "justifiable homicides" in which a private citizen used a firearm to defend themselves from a felon. Out of 8,275 criminal gun homicides, a mere three percent of homicides included in the study occurred out of self-defense (“Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use.”). Safe gun owners mean well— but evidently, they are but a