Why Is Gun Control Important

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Appropriate Gun Controls Reduce Civil death and Injury From Firearms

With at least 2000 deaths and millions of injuries caused by firearms daily, the global impact of small arms on people’s well being is a significant problem (Geneva Declaration 2008). Three areas of this civil death and injury can be specifically addressed through gun controls. The arguments outlined will demonstrate through statistics the success of specific controls to affect these areas. First of all, gun availability is a significant factor in the incidence and success rate of suicide attempts. Secondly, gun controls reduce the incidence of homicide. Finally, lack of appropriate gun controls is a major contributor to firearm related accidents. The evidence provided in this essay confirms that gun controls reduce civil death and injury from firearms.

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This study found that 24% of attempts occur within 5 minutes of making a decision and a further 70% occur within an hour. Gun controls that put a several week delay in obtaining a firearm provide plenty of time for the affected person to rethink their actions. Evidence in the study also showed that US states with high gun ownership have three times as many firearm suicides with no increase in the occurrence of non-firearm related suicides.

Closer to home, academic and government research has verified that the firearm suicide rate in Australia fell by 80% following the reduction of the number of firearms effected by the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) in 1997 (Leigh & Neill 2010, p. 509). This rate has stayed low even though the number of firearms privately owned has increased again (JHSPH 2012, p. 207). The key difference is that there are much tighter controls around obtaining and owning a firearm since the