thesis on gun control

Gun Control Essay: Important Topics, Examples, and More

Gun Control Definition

Gun control refers to the regulation of firearms to reduce the risk of harm caused by their misuse. It is an important issue that has garnered much attention in recent years due to the increasing number of gun-related incidents, including mass shootings and homicides. Writing an essay about gun control is important because it allows one to explore the various aspects of this complex and controversial topic, including the impact of gun laws on public safety, the constitutional implications of gun control, and the social and cultural factors that contribute to gun violence.

In writing an essay on gun control, conducting thorough research, considering multiple perspectives, and developing a well-informed argument is important. This may involve analyzing existing gun control policies and their effectiveness, exploring the attitudes and beliefs of different groups towards firearms, and examining the historical and cultural context of gun ownership and use. Through this process, one can develop a nuanced understanding of the issue and propose effective solutions to address the problem of gun violence.

Further information on writing essays on gun control can be found in various sources, including academic journals, policy reports, and news articles. In the following paragraphs, our nursing essay writing services will provide tips and resources to help you write an effective and informative guns essay. Contact our custom writer and get your writing request satisfied in a short term.

Gun Control Essay Types

There are various types of essays about gun control, each with its own unique focus and approach. From analyzing the effectiveness of existing gun laws to exploring the cultural and historical context of firearms in society, the possibilities for exploring this topic are virtually endless.

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• Argumentative Essay : This essay clearly argues for or against gun control laws. The writer must use evidence to support their position and refute opposing arguments.
• Descriptive Essay: A descriptive essay on gun control aims to provide a detailed topic analysis. The writer must describe the history and evolution of gun laws, the different types of firearms, and their impact on society.
• Cause and Effect Essay: This type of essay focuses on why gun control laws are necessary, the impact of gun violence on society, and the consequences of not having strict gun control laws.
• Compare and Contrast Essay: In this type of essay, the writer compares and contrasts different countries' gun laws and their effectiveness. They can also compare and contrast different types of guns and their impact on society.
• Expository Essay: This type of essay focuses on presenting facts and data on the topic of gun control. The writer must explain the different types of gun laws, their implementation, and their impact on society.
• Persuasive Essay: The writer of a persuasive essay aims to persuade the reader to support their position on gun control. They use a combination of facts, opinions, and emotional appeals to convince the reader.
• Narrative Essay: A narrative essay on gun control tells a story about an individual's experience with gun violence. It can be a personal story or a fictional one, but it should provide insight into the human impact of gun violence.

In the following paragraphs, we will provide an overview of the most common types of gun control essays and some tips and resources to help you write them effectively. Whether you are a student, a researcher, or simply someone interested in learning more about this important issue, these essays can provide valuable insight and perspective on the complex and often controversial topic of gun control.

Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

A persuasive essay on gun control is designed to convince the reader to support a specific stance on gun control policies. To write an effective persuasive essay, the writer must use a combination of facts, statistics, and emotional appeals to sway the reader's opinion. Here are some tips from our expert custom writer to help you write a persuasive essay on gun control:

• Research : Conduct thorough research on gun control policies, including their history, effectiveness, and societal impact. Use credible sources to back up your argument.
• Develop a thesis statement: In your gun control essay introduction, the thesis statement should clearly state your position on gun control and provide a roadmap for your paper.
• Use emotional appeals: Use emotional appeals to connect with your reader. For example, you could describe the impact of gun violence on families and communities.
• Address opposing viewpoints: Address opposing viewpoints and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
• Use statistics: Use statistics to back up your argument. For example, you could use statistics to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
• Use rhetorical devices: Use rhetorical devices, such as metaphors and analogies, to help the reader understand complex concepts.

Persuasive gun control essay examples include:

• The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to own any firearm.
• Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in the United States.
• The proliferation of guns in society leads to more violence and higher crime rates.
• Gun control laws should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.

Argumentative Essay on Gun Control

A gun control argumentative essay is designed to present a clear argument for or against gun control policies. To write an effective argumentative essay, the writer must present a well-supported argument and refute opposing arguments. Here are some tips to help you write an argumentative essay on gun control:

• Choose a clear stance: Choose a clear stance on gun control policies and develop a thesis statement that reflects your position.
• Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and use credible sources to back up your argument.
• Refute opposing arguments: Anticipate opposing arguments and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
• Use evidence: Use evidence to back up your argument. For example, you could use data to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
• Use logical reasoning: Use logical reasoning to explain why your argument is valid.

Examples of argumentative essay topics on gun control include:

• Gun control laws infringe upon individuals' right to bear arms and protect themselves.
• Gun control laws are ineffective and do not prevent gun violence.

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How to Choose a Good Gun Control Topic: Tips and Examples

Choosing a good gun control topic can be challenging, but with some careful consideration, you can select an interesting and relevant topic. Here are seven tips for choosing a good gun control topic with examples:

• Consider current events: Choose a topic that is current and relevant. For example, the impact of the pandemic on gun control policies.
• Narrow your focus: Choose a specific aspect of gun control to focus on, such as the impact of gun control laws on crime rates.
• Consider your audience: Consider who your audience is and what they are interested in. For example, a topic that appeals to gun enthusiasts might be the ethics of owning firearms.
• Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and current events. For example, the impact of the Second Amendment on gun control laws.
• Choose a controversial topic: Choose a controversial topic that will generate discussion. For example, the impact of the NRA on gun control policies.
• Choose a topic that interests you: You can choose an opinion article on gun control that you are passionate about and interested in. For example, the impact of mass shootings on public opinion of gun control.
• Consider different perspectives: Consider different perspectives on gun control and choose a topic that allows you to explore multiple viewpoints. For example, the effectiveness of background checks in preventing gun violence.

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Pro-Gun Control Essay Topics

Here are pro-gun control essay topics that can serve as a starting point for your research and writing, helping you to craft a strong and persuasive argument.

• Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in America.
• The Second Amendment was written for a different time and should be updated to reflect modern society.
• Gun control and gun safety laws can prevent mass shootings and other forms of gun violence.
• Owning a gun should be a privilege, not a right.
• Universal background checks should be mandatory for all gun purchases.
• The availability of assault weapons should be severely restricted.
• Concealed carry permits should be harder to obtain and require more rigorous training.
• The gun lobby has too much influence on government policy.
• The mental health of gun owners should be considered when purchasing firearms.
• Gun violence has a significant economic impact on communities and the nation as a whole.
• There is a strong correlation between high gun ownership rates and higher gun violence rates.
• Gun control policies can help prevent suicides and accidental shootings.
• Gun control policies should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.
• More research is needed on the impact of gun control policies on gun violence.
• The impact of gun violence on children and young people is a significant public health issue.
• Gun control policies should be designed to reduce the illegal gun trade and access to firearms by criminals.
• The right to own firearms should not override the right to public safety.
• The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from gun violence.
• Gun control policies are compatible with the Second Amendment.
• International examples of successful gun control policies can be applied in America.

Anti-Gun Control Essay Topics

These topics against gun control essay can help you develop strong and persuasive arguments based on individual rights and the importance of personal freedom.

• Gun control laws infringe on the Second Amendment and individual rights.
• Stricter gun laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.
• Gun control laws are unnecessary and will only burden law-abiding citizens.
• Owning a gun is a fundamental right and essential for self-defense.
• Gun-free zones create a false sense of security and leave people vulnerable.
• A Gun control law will not stop mass school shootings, as these are often premeditated and planned.
• The government cannot be trusted to enforce gun control laws fairly and justly.
• Gun control laws unfairly target law-abiding gun owners and punish them for the actions of a few.
• Gun ownership is a part of American culture and heritage and should not be restricted.
• Gun control laws will not stop criminals from using firearms to commit crimes.
• Gun control laws often ignore the root causes of gun violence, such as mental illness and poverty.
• Gun control laws will not stop terrorists from using firearms to carry out attacks.
• Gun control laws will only create a black market for firearms, making it easier for criminals to obtain them.
• Gun control laws will not stop domestic violence, as abusers will find other ways to harm their victims.
• Gun control laws will not stop drug cartels and organized crime from trafficking firearms.
• Gun control laws will not stop gang violence and turf wars.
• Gun control laws are an infringement on personal freedom and individual responsibility.
• Gun control laws are often rooted in emotion rather than reason and evidence.
• Gun control laws ignore the important role that firearms play in hunting and sport shooting.
• More gun control laws will only give the government more power and control over its citizens.

Example Essays

Whether you have been assigned to write a gun control research paper or essay, the tips provided above should help you grasp the general idea of how to cope with this task. Now, to give you an even better understanding of the task and set you on the right track, here are a few excellent examples of well-written papers on this topic:

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Final Words

In conclusion, writing a sample rhetorical analysis essay requires careful analysis and effective use of persuasive techniques. Whether you are a high school student or a college student, mastering the art of rhetorical analysis can help you become a more effective communicator and critical thinker. With practice and perseverance, anyone can become a skilled writer and excel in their academic pursuits.

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Gun Control, Explained

A quick guide to the debate over gun legislation in the United States.

By The New York Times

As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise , gun control — a term used to describe a wide range of restrictions and measures aimed at controlling the use of firearms — remains at the center of heated discussions among proponents and opponents of stricter gun laws.

To help understand the debate and its political and social implications, we addressed some key questions on the subject.

Is gun control effective?

Throughout the world, mass shootings have frequently been met with a common response: Officials impose new restrictions on gun ownership. Mass shootings become rarer. Homicides and suicides tend to decrease, too.

After a British gunman killed 16 people in 1987, the country banned semiautomatic weapons like the ones he had used. It did the same with most handguns after a school shooting in 1996. It now has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.

In Australia, a 1996 massacre prompted mandatory gun buybacks in which, by some estimates , as many as one million firearms were then melted into slag. The rate of mass shootings plummeted .

Only the United States, whose rate and severity of mass shootings is without parallel outside conflict zones, has so consistently refused to respond to those events with tightened gun laws .

Several theories to explain the number of shootings in the United States — like its unusually violent societal, class and racial divides, or its shortcomings in providing mental health care — have been debunked by research. But one variable remains: the astronomical number of guns in the country.

America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per one million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership. Americans sometimes see this as an expression of its deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley. Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed , that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process. They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns. More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries , among American states , among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries. This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence. — Max Fisher and Josh Keller, Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns.

Every mass shooting is, in some sense, a fringe event, driven by one-off factors like the ideology or personal circumstances of the assailant. The risk is impossible to fully erase.

Still, the record is confirmed by reams of studies that have analyzed the effects of policies like Britain’s and Australia’s: When countries tighten gun control laws, it leads to fewer guns in private citizens’ hands, which leads to less gun violence.

What gun control measures exist at the federal level?

Much of current federal gun control legislation is a baseline, governing who can buy, sell and use certain classes of firearms, with states left free to enact additional restrictions.

Dealers must be licensed, and run background checks to ensure their buyers are not “prohibited persons,” including felons or people with a history of domestic violence — though private sellers at gun shows or online marketplaces are not required to run background checks. Federal law also highly restricts the sale of certain firearms, such as fully automatic rifles.

The most recent federal legislation , a bipartisan effort passed last year after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, expanded background checks for buyers under 21 and closed what is known as the boyfriend loophole. It also strengthened existing bans on gun trafficking and straw purchasing.

— Aishvarya Kavi

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What are gun buyback programs and do they work?

Gun buyback programs are short-term initiatives that provide incentives, such as money or gift cards, to convince people to surrender firearms to law enforcement, typically with no questions asked. These events are often held by governments or private groups at police stations, houses of worship and community centers. Guns that are collected are either destroyed or stored.

Most programs strive to take guns off the streets, provide a safe place for firearm disposal and stir cultural changes in a community, according to Gun by Gun , a nonprofit dedicated to preventing gun violence.

The first formal gun buyback program was held in Baltimore in 1974 after three police officers were shot and killed, according to the authors of the book “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States.” The initiative collected more than 13,000 firearms, but failed to reduce gun violence in the city. Hundreds of other buyback programs have since unfolded across the United States.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton announced the nation’s first federal gun buyback program . The $15 million program provided grants of up to $500,000 to police departments to buy and destroy firearms. Two years later, the Senate defeated efforts to extend financing for the program after the Bush administration called for it to end.

Despite the popularity of gun buyback programs among certain anti-violence and anti-gun advocates, there is little data to suggest that they work. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research , a private nonprofit, found that buyback programs adopted in U.S. cities were ineffective in deterring gun crime, firearm-related homicides or firearm-related suicides. . Evidence showed that cities set the sale price of a firearm too low to considerably reduce the supply of weapons; most who participated in such initiatives came from low-crime areas and firearms that were typically collected were either older or not in good working order.

Dr. Brendan Campbell, a pediatric surgeon at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and an author of one chapter in “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States,” said that buyback programs should collect significantly more firearms than they currently do in order to be more effective.

Dr. Campbell said they should also offer higher prices for handguns and assault rifles. “Those are the ones that are most likely to be used in crime,” and by people attempting suicide, he said. “If you just give $100 for whatever gun, that’s when you’ll end up with all these old, rusted guns that are a low risk of causing harm in the community.”

Mandatory buyback programs have been enacted elsewhere around the world. After a mass shooting in 1996, Australia put in place a nationwide buyback program , collecting somewhere between one in five and one in three privately held guns. The initiative mostly targeted semiautomatic rifles and many shotguns that, under new laws, were no longer permitted. New Zealand banned military-style semiautomatic weapons, assault rifles and some gun parts and began its own large-scale buyback program in 2019, after a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch. The authorities said that more than 56,000 prohibited firearms had been collected from about 32,000 people through the initiative.

Where does the U.S. public stand on the issue?

Expanded background checks for guns purchased routinely receive more than 80 or 90 percent support in polling.

Nationally, a majority of Americans have supported stricter gun laws for decades. A Gallup poll conducted in June found that 55 percent of participants were in favor of a ban on the manufacture, possession and sale of semiautomatic guns. A majority of respondents also supported other measures, including raising the legal age at which people can purchase certain firearms, and enacting a 30-day waiting period for gun sales.

But the jumps in demand for gun control that occur after mass shootings also tend to revert to the partisan mean as time passes. Gallup poll data shows that the percentage of participants who supported stricter gun laws receded to 57 percent in October from 66 percent in June, which was just weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo. A PDK poll conducted after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde found that 72 percent of Republicans supported arming teachers, in contrast with 24 percent of Democrats.

What do opponents of gun control argue?

Opponents of gun control, including most Republican members of Congress, argue that proposals to limit access to firearms infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. And they contend that mass shootings are not the result of easily accessible guns, but of criminals and mentally ill people bent on waging violence.

— Annie Karni

Why is it so hard to push for legislation?

Polling suggests that Americans broadly support gun control measures, yet legislation is often stymied in Washington, and Republicans rarely seem to pay a political price for their opposition.

The calculation behind Republicans’ steadfast stonewalling of any new gun regulations — even in the face of the kind unthinkable massacres like in Uvalde, Texas — is a fairly simple one for Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Asked what the reaction would be from voters back home if he were to support any significant form of gun control, the first-term Republican had a straightforward answer: “Most would probably throw me out of office,” he said. His response helps explain why Republicans have resisted proposals such as the one for universal background checks for gun buyers, despite remarkably broad support from the public for such plans — support that can reach up to 90 percent nationwide in some cases. Republicans like Mr. Cramer understand that they would receive little political reward for joining the push for laws to limit access to guns, including assault-style weapons. But they know for certain that they would be pounded — and most likely left facing a primary opponent who could cost them their job — for voting for gun safety laws or even voicing support for them. Most Republicans in the Senate represent deeply conservative states where gun ownership is treated as a sacred privilege enshrined in the Constitution, a privilege not to be infringed upon no matter how much blood is spilled in classrooms and school hallways around the country. Though the National Rifle Association has recently been diminished by scandal and financial turmoil , Democrats say that the organization still has a strong hold on Republicans through its financial contributions and support, hardening the party’s resistance to any new gun laws. — Carl Hulse, “ Why Republicans Won’t Budge on Guns .”

Yet while the power of the gun lobby, the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate and single-voter issues offer some explanation, there is another possibility: voters.

When voters in four Democratic-leaning states got the opportunity to enact expanded gun or ammunition background checks into law, the overwhelming support suggested by national surveys was nowhere to be found. For Democrats, the story is both unsettling and familiar. Progressives have long been emboldened by national survey results that show overwhelming support for their policy priorities, only to find they don’t necessarily translate to Washington legislation and to popularity on Election Day or beyond. President Biden’s major policy initiatives are popular , for example, yet voters say he has not accomplished much and his approval ratings have sunk into the low 40s. The apparent progressive political majority in the polls might just be illusory. Public support for new gun restrictions tends to rise in the wake of mass shootings. There is already evidence that public support for stricter gun laws has surged again in the aftermath of the killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. While the public’s support for new restrictions tends to subside thereafter, these shootings or another could still produce a lasting shift in public opinion. But the poor results for background checks suggest that public opinion may not be the unequivocal ally of gun control that the polling makes it seem. — Nate Cohn, “ Voters Say They Want Gun Control. Their Votes Say Something Different. ”

May 26, 2022

The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives

By enacting simple laws that make guns safer and harder to get, we can prevent killings like the ones in Uvalde and Buffalo

By The Editors

Adam Gault/Getty Images

Editor’s Note (5/24/23): One year ago, on May 24, 2022, 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex . This piece by Scientific American's editors presents the case that simple gun laws can prevent future tragedies.

Some editorials simply hurt to write. This is one.

At least 19 elementary school children and two teachers are dead, many more are injured, and a grandmother is fighting for her life in Uvalde, Tex., all because a young man, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, decided to fire in a school.

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By now, you know these facts: This killing spree was the largest school shooting since Sandy Hook. Law enforcement couldn’t immediately subdue the killer. In Texas, it’s alarmingly easy to buy and openly carry a gun . In the immediate hours after the shooting, President Biden demanded reform , again. Legislators demanded reform , again. And progun politicians turned to weathered talking points: arm teachers and build safer schools.

But rather than arm our teachers (who have enough to do without keeping that gun away from students and having to train like law enforcement to confront an armed attacker), rather than spend much-needed school dollars on more metal detectors instead of education, we need to make it harder to buy a gun. Especially the kind of weapons used by this killer and the white supremacist who killed 10 people grocery shopping in Buffalo . And we need to put a lasting stop to the political obstruction of taxpayer-funded research into gun-related injuries and deaths.

The science is abundantly clear: More guns do not stop crime . Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members. Guns are a public health crisis , just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again.

In the U.S., we have existing infrastructure that we could easily emulate to make gun use safer: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration . Created by Congress in 1970, this federal agency is tasked, among other things, with helping us drive a car safely. It gathers data on automobile deaths. It’s the agency that monitors and studies seat belt usage . While we track firearm-related deaths, no such safety-driven agency exists for gun use.

During the early 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to explore gun violence as a public health issue. After studies tied having a firearm to increased homicide risk , the National Rifle Association took action , spearheading the infamous Dickey Amendment, diverting gun research dollars and preventing federal funding from being used to promote gun control. For more than 20 years, research on gun violence in this country has been hard to do.

What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.

While cars have become increasingly safer (it’s one of the auto industry’s main talking points in marketing these days), the gun lobby has thwarted nearly all attempts to make it harder to fire a weapon. With federal protection against some lawsuits , the financial incentive of a giant tort payout to make guns safer is virtually nonexistent.

After the Uvalde killings, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton , said he’d “rather have law-abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens.” Sen. Ted Cruz emphasized “armed law enforcement on the campus.” They are two of many conservatives who see more guns as the key to fighting gun crime. They are wrong.

A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.

As we previously reported , in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide . Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up . These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.

Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent . Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.

Such laws, plus red flag laws and those taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who abuse alcohol, would lower our gun violence rate as a nation. But it would require elected officials to detach themselves from the gun lobby. There are so many issues to consider when voting, but in this midterm election year, we believe that protection from gun violence is one that voters could really advance. Surveys routinely show that gun control measures are extremely popular with the U.S. population.

In the meantime, there is some hope. Congress restored funding for gun-related research in 2019, and there are researchers now looking at ways to reduce gun deaths. But it’s unclear if this change in funding is permanent. And what we’ve lost is 20 years of data on gun injuries, death, safety measures and a score of other things that could make gun ownership in this country safer.

Against all this are families whose lives will never be the same because of gun violence. Who must mourn children and adults lost in domestic violence, accidental killings and mass shootings that are so common, we are still grieving one when the next one occurs.

We need to become the kind of country that looks at guns for what they are: weapons that kill. And treat them with the kind of respect that insists they be harder to get and safer to use.

And then we need to become the kind of country that says the lives of children are more valuable than the right to weapons that have killed them, time and again. Since Columbine. Since Sandy Hook. Since always.

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• Published: 10 December 2019

The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning

• Joseph M. Pierre 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  5 , Article number:  159 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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• Politics and international relations
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The gun debate in America is often framed as a stand-off between two immutable positions with little potential to move ahead with meaningful legislative reform. Attempts to resolve this impasse have been thwarted by thinking about gun ownership attitudes as based on rational choice economics instead of considering the broader socio-cultural meanings of guns. In this essay, an additional psychological perspective is offered that highlights how concerns about victimization and mass shootings within a shared culture of fear can drive cognitive bias and motivated reasoning on both sides of the gun debate. Despite common fears, differences in attitudes and feelings about guns themselves manifest in variable degrees of support for or opposition to gun control legislation that are often exaggerated within caricatured depictions of polarization. A psychological perspective suggests that consensus on gun legislation reform can be achieved through understanding differences and diversity on both sides of the debate, working within a common middle ground, and more research to resolve ambiguities about how best to minimize fear while maximizing personal and public safety.

Discounting risk

Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Answers to that riddle draw a bright line between two sides of a caricatured debate about guns in polarized America. One side believes that guns are a menace to public safety, while the other believes that they are an essential tool of self-preservation. One side cannot fathom why more gun control legislation has not been passed in the wake of a disturbing rise in mass shootings in the US and eyes Australia’s 1996 sweeping gun reform and New Zealand’s more recent restrictions with envy. The other, backed by the Constitutional right to bear arms and the powerful lobby of the National Rifle Association (NRA), fears the slippery slope of legislative change and refuses to yield an inch while threatening, “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”. With the nation at an impasse, meaningful federal gun legislation aimed at reducing firearm violence remains elusive.

Despite the 1996 Dickey Amendment’s restriction of federal funding for research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Rostron, 2018 ), more than 30 years of public health research supports thinking of guns as statistically more of a personal hazard than a benefit. Case-control studies have repeatedly found that gun ownership is associated with an increased risk of gun-related homicide or suicide occurring in the home (Kellermann and Reay, 1986 ; Kellermann et al., 1993 ; Cummings and Koepsell, 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ; Dahlberg et al., 2004 ; Hemenway, 2011 ; Anglemeyer et al., 2014 ). For homicides, the association is largely driven by gun-related violence committed by family members and other acquaintances, not strangers (Kellermann et al., 1993 , 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ).

If having a gun increases the risk of gun-related violent death in the home, why do people choose to own guns? To date, the prevailing answer from the public health literature has been seemingly based on a knowledge deficit model that assumes that gun owners are unaware of risks and that repeated warnings about “overwhelming evidence” of “the health risk of a gun in the home [being] greater than the benefit” (Hemenway, 2011 ) should therefore decrease gun ownership and increase support for gun legislation reform. And yet, the rate of US households with guns has held steady for two decades (Smith and Son, 2015 ) with owners amassing an increasing number of guns such that the total civilian stock has risen to some 265 million firearms (Azrael et al., 2017 ). This disparity suggests that the knowledge deficit model is inadequate to explain or modify gun ownership.

In contrast to the premise that people weigh the risks and benefits of their behavior based on “rational choice economics” (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ), nearly 50 years of psychology and behavioral economics research has instead painted a picture of human decision-making as a less than rational process based on cognitive short-cuts (“availability heuristics”) and other error-prone cognitive biases (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974 ; Kunda, 1990 ; Haselton and Nettle, 2006 ; Hibert, 2012 ). As a result, “consequentialist” approaches to promoting healthier choices are often ineffective. Following this perspective, recent public health efforts have moved beyond educational campaigns to apply an understanding of the psychology of risky behavior to strike a balance between regulation and behavioral “nudges” aimed at reducing harmful practices like smoking, unhealthy eating, texting while driving, and vaccine refusal (Atchley et al., 2011 ; Hansen et al., 2016 ; Matjasko et al., 2016 ; Pluviano et al., 2017 ).

A similar public health approach aimed at reducing gun violence should take into account how gun owners discount the risks of ownership according to cognitive biases and motivated reasoning. For example, cognitive dissonance may lead those who already own guns to turn a blind eye to research findings about the dangers of ownership. Optimism bias, the general tendency of individuals to overestimate good outcomes and underestimate bad outcomes, can likewise make it easy to disregard dangers by externalizing them to others. The risk of suicide can therefore be dismissed out of hand based on the rationale that “it will never happen to me,” while the risk of homicide can be discounted based on demographic factors. Kleck and Gertz ( 1998 ) noted that membership in street gangs and drug dealing might be important confounds of risk in case control studies, just as unsafe storage practices such as keeping a firearm loaded and unlocked may be another (Kellerman et al., 1993 ). Other studies have found that the homicide risk associated with guns in the home is greater for women compared to men and for non-whites compared to whites (Wiebe, 2003 ). Consequently, white men—by far the largest demographic that owns guns—might be especially likely to think of themselves as immune to the risks of gun ownership and, through confirmation bias, cherry-pick the data to support pre-existing intuitions and fuel motivated disbelief about guns. These testable hypotheses warrant examination in future research aimed at understanding the psychology of gun ownership and crafting public health approaches to curbing gun violence.

Still, while the role of cognitive biases should be integrated into a psychological understanding of attitudes towards gun ownership, cognitive biases are universal liabilities that fall short of explaining why some people might “employ” them as a part of motivated reasoning to support ownership or to oppose gun reform. To understand the underlying motivation that drives cognitive bias, a deeper analysis of why people own guns is required. In the introductory essay to this journal’s series on “What Guns Mean,” Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that public health efforts to reduce firearm ownership have failed to “address beliefs about guns among people who own them”. In a follow-up piece, Galea and Abdalla ( 2019 ) likewise suggested that the gun debate is complicated by the fact that “knowledge and values do not align” and that “these values create an impasse, one where knowing is not enough” (Galea and Abdalla, 2019 ). Indeed, these and other authors (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Braman and Kahan, 2006 ; Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ) have enumerated myriad beliefs and values, related to the different “symbolic lives” and “social meanings” of firearms both within and outside of “gun culture” that drive polarized attitudes towards gun ownership in the US. This essay attempts to further explore the meaning of guns from a psychological perspective.

Fear and gun ownership

Modern psychological understanding of human decision-making has moved beyond availability heuristics and cognitive biases to integrate the role of emotion and affect. Several related models including the “risk-as-feelings hypothesis” (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ), the “affect heuristic” (Slovic et al., 2007 ); and the “appraisal-tendency framework” (Lerner et al., 2015 ) illustrate how emotions can hijack rational-decision-making processes to the point of being the dominant influence on risk assessments. Research has shown that “perceived risk judgments”—estimates of the likelihood that something bad will happen—are especially hampered by emotion (Pachur et al., 2012 ) and that different types of affect can bias such judgments in different ways (Lerner et al., 2015 ). For example, fear can in particular bias assessments away from rational analysis to overestimate risks, as well as to perceive negative events as unpredictable (Lerner et al., 2015 ).

Although gun ownership is associated with positive feelings about firearms within “gun culture” (Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ; Metzl, 2019 ), most research comparing gun owners to non-gun owners suggests that ownership is rooted in fear. While long guns have historically been owned primarily for hunting and other recreational purposes, US surveys dating back to the 1990s have revealed that the most frequent reason for gun ownership and more specifically handgun ownership is self-protection (Cook and Ludwig, 1997 ; Azrael et al., 2017 ; Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Research has likewise shown that the decision to obtain a firearm is largely motivated by past victimization and/or fears of future victimization (Kleck et al., 2011 ; Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ).

A few studies have reported that handgun ownership is associated with past victimization, perceived risk of crime, and perceived ineffectiveness of police protection within low-income communities where these concerns may be congruent with real risks (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 , 2004 ). However, gun ownership tends to be lower in urban settings and in low-income families where there might be higher rates of violence and crime (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 ). Instead, the largest demographic of gun owners in the US are white men living in rural communities who are earning more than $100K/year (Azrael et al., 2017 ). Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) likewise reported that gun owners tend to have higher incomes and greater ratings of life happiness than non-owners. These findings suggest a mismatch between subjective fear and objective reality.

Stroebe and colleagues ( 2017 ) reported that the specific perceived risk of victimization and more “diffuse” fears that the world is a dangerous place are both independent predictors of handgun ownership, with perceived risk of assault associated with having been or knowing a victim of violent crime and belief in a dangerous world associated with political conservatism. These findings hint at the likelihood that perceived risk of victimization can be based on vicarious sources with a potential for bias, whether through actual known acquaintances or watching the nightly news, conducting a Google search or scanning one’s social media feed, or reading “The Armed Citizen” column in the NRA newsletter The American Rifleman . It also suggests that a general fear of crime, independent of actual or even perceived individual risk, may be a powerful motivator for gun ownership for some that might track with race and political ideology.

Several authors have drawn a connection between gun ownership and racial tensions by examining the cultural symbolism and socio-political meaning of guns. Bhatia ( 2019 ) detailed how the NRA’s “disinformation campaign reliant on fearmongering” is constructed around a narrative of “fear and identity politics” that exploits current xenophobic sentiments related to immigrants. Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that during the 1960s, conservatives were uncharacteristically in favor of gun control when armed resistance was promoted by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, and others involved in the Black Power Movement. Today, Metzl argues, “mainstream society reflexively codes white men carrying weapons in public as patriots, while marking armed black men as threats or criminals.” In support of this view, a 2013 study found that having a gun in the home was significantly associated with racism against black people as measured by the Symbolic Racism Scale, noting that “for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% greater odds of having a gun in the home and a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns” (O’Brien et al., 2013 ). Hypothesizing that guns are a symbol of hegemonic masculinity that serves to “shore up white male privilege in society,” Stroud ( 2012 ) interviewed a non-random sample of 20 predominantly white men in Texas who had licenses for concealed handgun carry. The men described how guns help to fulfill their identities as protectors of their families, while characterizing imagined dangers with rhetoric suggesting specific fears about black criminals. These findings suggest that gun ownership among white men may be related to a collective identity as “good guys” protecting themselves against “bad guys” who are people of color, a premise echoed in the lay press with headlines like, “Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?” (Smith, 2018 ), “Report: White Men Stockpile Guns Because They’re Afraid of Black People” (Harriott, 2018 ), and “Gun Rights Are About Keeping White Men on Top” (Wuertenberg, 2018 ).

Connecting the dots, the available evidence therefore suggests that for many gun owners, fears about victimization can result in confirmation, myside, and optimism biases that not only discount the risks of ownership, but also elevate the salience of perceived benefit, however remote, as it does when one buys a lottery ticket (Rogers and Webley, 2001 ). Indeed, among gun owners there is widespread belief that having a gun makes one safer, supported by published claims that where there are “more guns”, there is “less crime” (Lott, 1998 , 1999 ) as well as statistics and anecdotes about successful defensive gun use (DGU) (Kleck and Gertz, 1995 , 1998 ; Tark and Kleck, 2004 ; Cramer and Burnett, 2012 ). Suffice it to say that there have been numerous debates about how to best interpret this body of evidence, with critics claiming that “more guns, less crime” is a myth (Ayres and Donohue, 2003 ; Moyer, 2017 ) that has been “discredited” (Wintemute, 2008 ) and that the incidence of DGU has been grossly overestimated and pales in comparison to the risk of being threatened or harmed by a gun in the home (Hemenway, 1997 , 2011 ; Cook and Ludwig, 1998 ; Azrael and Hemenway, 2000 ; Hemenway et al., 2000 ). Attempts at objective analysis have concluded that surveys to date have defined and measured DGU inconsistently with unclear numbers of false positives and false negatives (Smith, 1997 ; McDowall et al., 2000 ; National Research Council, 2005 ; RAND, 2018 ), that the causal effects of DGU on reducing injury are “inconclusive” (RAND, 2018 ), and that “neither side seems to be willing to give ground or see their opponent’s point of view” (Smith, 1997 ). With the scientific debate about DGU mirrored in the lay press (Defilippis and Hughes, 2015 ; Kleck, 2015 ; Doherty, 2015 ), a rational assessment of whether guns make owners safer is hampered by a lack of “settled science”. With no apparent consensus, motivated reasoning can pave the way to the nullification of opposing arguments in favor of personal opinions and ideological stances.

For gun owners, even if it is acknowledged that on average successful DGU is much less likely than a homicide or suicide in the home, not having a gun at all translates to zero chance of self-preservation, which are intolerable odds. The bottom line is that when gun owners believe that owning a gun will make them feel safer, little else may matter. Curiously however, there is conflicting evidence that gun ownership actually decreases fears of victimization (Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ; Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ). That gun ownership may not mitigate such fears could help to account for why some individuals go on to acquire multiple guns beyond their initial purchase with US gun owners possessing an average of 5 firearms and 8% of owners having 10 or more (Azrael et al., 2017 ).

Gun owner diversity

A psychological model of the polarized gun debate in America would ideally compare those for or against gun control legislation. However, research to date has instead focused mainly on differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, which has several limitations. For example, of the nearly 70% of Americans who do not own a gun, 36% report that they can see themselves owning one in the future (Pew Research Center, 2017 ) with 11.5% of all gun owners in 2015 having newly acquired one in the previous 5 years (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Gun ownership and non-ownership are therefore dynamic states that may not reflect static ideology. Personal accounts such as Willis’ ( 2010 ) article, “I Was Anti-gun, Until I Got Stalked,” illustrate this point well.

With existing research heavily reliant on comparing gun owners to non-gun owners, a psychological model of gun attitudes in the US will have limited utility if it relies solely on gun owner stereotypes based on their most frequent demographic characteristics. On the contrary, Hauser and Kleck ( 2013 ) have argued that “a more complete understanding of the relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership at the individual level is crucial”. Just so, looking more closely at the diversity of gun owners can reveal important details beyond the kinds of stereotypes that are often used to frame political debates.

Foremost, it must be recognized that not all gun owners are conservative white men with racist attitudes. Over the past several decades, women have comprised 9–14% of US gun owners with the “gender gap” narrowing due to decreasing male ownership (Smith and Son, 2015 ). A 2017 Pew Survey reported that 22% of women in the US own a gun and that female gun owners are just as likely as men to belong to the NRA (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Although the 36% rate of gun ownership among US whites is the highest for any racial demographic, 25% of blacks and 15% of Hispanics report owning guns with these racial groups being significantly more concerned than whites about gun violence in their communities and the US as a whole (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Providing a striking counterpoint to Stroud’s ( 2012 ) interviews of white gun owners in Texas, Craven ( 2017 ) interviewed 11 black gun owners across the country who offered diverse views on guns and the question of whether owning them makes them feel safer, including if confronted by police during a traffic stop. Kelly ( 2019 ) has similarly offered a self-portrait as a female “left-wing anarchist” against the stereotype of guns owners as “Republicans, racist libertarians, and other generally Constitution-obsessed weirdos”. She reminds us that, “there is also a long history of armed community self-defense among the radical left that is often glossed over or forgotten entirely in favor of the Fox News-friendly narrative that all liberals hate guns… when the cops and other fascists see that they’re not the only ones packing, the balance of power shifts, and they tend to reconsider their tactics”.

Although Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) concluded that “white men in economic distress find comfort in guns as a means to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude,” their study results actually demonstrated that gun owners fall into distinguishable groups based on different levels of “moral and emotional empowerment” imparted by guns. For example, those with low levels of gun empowerment were more likely to be female and to own long guns for recreational purposes such as hunting and collecting. Other research has shown that the motivations to own a gun, and the degree to which gun ownership is related to fear and the desire for self-protection, also varies according to the type of gun (Stroebe et al., 2017 ). Owning guns, owning specific types of guns (e.g. handguns, long guns, and so-called “military style” semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s), carrying a gun in public, and keeping a loaded gun on one’s nightstand all have different psychological implications. A 2015 study reported that new gun owners were younger and more likely to identify as liberal than long-standing gun owners (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Although Kalesan et al. ( 2016 ) found that gun ownership is more likely among those living within a “gun culture” where ownership is prevalent, encouraged, and part of social life, it would therefore be a mistake to characterize gun culture as a monolith.

It would also be a mistake to equate gun ownership with opposition to gun legislation reform or vice-versa. Although some evidence supports a strong association (Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998 ), more recent studies suggest important exceptions to the rule. While only about 30% of the US population owns a gun, over 70% believes that most citizens should be able to legally own them (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Women tend to be more likely than men to support gun control, even when they are gun owners themselves (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Mencken and Froese, 2019 ). Older (age 70–79) Americans likewise have some of the highest rates of gun ownership, but also the highest rates of support for gun control (Pederson et al., 2015 ). In Mencken and Froese’s study ( 2019 ), most gun owners reporting lower levels of gun empowerment favored bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines and opposed arming teachers in schools. Kahan and Braman ( 2003 ) theorized that attitudes towards gun control are best understood according to a “cultural theory of risk”. In their study sample, those with “hierarchical” and “individualist” cultural orientations were more likely than those with “egalitarian” views to oppose gun control and these perspectives were more predictive than other variables including political affiliation and fear of crime.

In fact, both gun owners and non-owners report high degrees of support for universal background checks; laws mandating safe gun storage in households with children; and “red flag” laws restricting access to firearms for those hospitalized for mental illness or those otherwise at risk of harming themselves or others, those convicted of certain crimes including public display of a gun in a threatening manner, those subject to temporary domestic violence restraining orders, and those on “no-fly” or other watch lists (Pew Research Center, 2017 ; Barry et al., 2018 ). According to a 2015 survey, the majority of the US public also opposes carrying firearms in public spaces with most gun owners opposing public carry in schools, college campuses, places of worship, bars, and sports stadiums (Wolfson et al., 2017 ). Despite broad public support for gun legislation reform however, it is important to recognize that the threat of gun restrictions is an important driver of gun acquisition (Wallace, 2015 ; Aisch and Keller, 2016 ). As a result, proposals to restrict gun ownership boosted gun sales considerably under the Obama administration (Depetris-Chauvin, 2015 ), whereas gun companies like Remington and United Sporting Companies have since filed for bankruptcy under the Trump administration.

A shared culture of fear

Developing a psychological understanding of attitudes towards guns and gun control legislation in the US that accounts for underlying emotions, motivated reasoning, and individual variation must avoid the easy trap of pathologizing gun owners and dismissing their fears as irrational. Instead, it should consider the likelihood that motivated reasoning underlies opinion on both sides of the gun debate, with good reason to conclude that fear is a prominent source of both “pro-gun” and “anti-gun” attitudes. Although the research on fear and gun ownership summarized above implies that non-gun owners are unconcerned about victimization, a closer look at individual study data reveals both small between-group differences and significant within-group heterogeneity. For example, Stroebe et al.’s ( 2017 ) findings that gun owners had greater mean ratings of belief in a dangerous world, perceived risk of victimization, and the perceived effectiveness of owning a gun for self-defense were based on inter-group differences of <1 point on a 7-point Likert scale. Fear of victimization is therefore a universal fear for gun owners and non-gun owners alike, with important differences in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of those fears. Kahan and Braham ( 2003 ) noted that the gun debate is not so much a debate about the personal risks of gun ownership, as it is a one about which of two potential fears is most salient—that of “firearm casualties in a world with insufficient gun control or that of personal defenselessness in a world with excessive control”.

Although this “shared fear” hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested in existing research, there is general support for it based on evidence that fear is an especially potent influence on risk assessment and decision-making when considering low-frequency catastrophic events (Chanel et al., 2009 ). In addition, biased risk assessments have been linked to individual feelings about a specific activity. Whereas many activities in the real world have both high risk and high benefit, positive attitudes about an activity are associated with biased judgments of low risk and high benefit while negative attitudes are associated with biased judgments of high risk and low benefit (Slovic et al., 2007 ). These findings match those of the gun debate, whereby catastrophic events like mass shootings can result in “probability neglect,” over-estimating the likelihood of risk (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ) with polarized differences regarding guns as a root cause and gun control as a viable solution. For those that have positive feelings about guns and their perceived benefit, the risk of gun ownership is minimized as discussed above. However, based on findings from psychological research on fear (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ; Slovic et al., 2007 ), the reverse is also likely to be true—those with negative feelings about guns who perceive little benefit to ownership may tend to over-estimate risks. Consistent with this dichotomy, both calls for legislative gun reform, as well as gun purchases increase in the wake of mass shootings (Wallace, 2015 ; Wozniak, 2017 ), with differences primarily predicted by the relative self-serving attributional biases of gun ownership and non-ownership alike (Joslyn and Haider-Markel, 2017 ).

Psychological research has shown that fear is associated with loss of control, with risks that are unfamiliar and uncontrollable perceived as disproportionately dangerous (Lerner et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 2003 ). Although mass shootings have increased in recent years, they remain extremely rare events and represent a miniscule proportion of overall gun violence. And yet, as acts of terrorism, they occur in places like schools that are otherwise thought of as a suburban “safe spaces,” unlike inner cities where violence is more mundane, and are often given sensationalist coverage in the media. A 2019 Harris Poll found that 79% of Americans endorse stress as a result of the possibility of a mass shooting, with about a third reporting that they “cannot go anywhere without worrying about being a victim” (American Psychological Association, 2019 ). While some evidence suggests that gun owners may be more concerned about mass shootings than non-gun owners (Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ), this is again a quantitative difference as with fear of victimization more generally. There is little doubt that parental fears about children being victims of gun violence were particularly heightened in the wake of Columbine (Altheide, 2019 ) and it is likely that subsequent school shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Stoneman Douglas High have been especially impactful in the minds of those calling for increasing restrictions on gun ownership. For those privileged to be accustomed to community safety who are less worried about home invasion and have faith in the police to provide protection, fantasizing about “gun free zones” may reflect a desire to recreate safe spaces in the wake of mass shootings that invoke feelings of loss of control.

Altheide ( 2019 ) has argued that mass shootings in the US post-Columbine have been embedding within a larger cultural narrative of terrorism, with “expanded social control and policies that helped legitimate the war on terror”. Sunstein and Zeckhauser ( 2011 ) have similarly noted that following terrorist attacks, the public tends to demand responses from government, favoring precautionary measures that are “not justified by any plausible analysis of expected utility” and over-estimating potential benefits. However, such responses may not only be ineffective, but potentially damaging. For example, although collective anxieties in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in the rapid implementation of new screening procedures for boarding airplanes, it has been argued that the “theater” of response may have done well to decrease fear without any evidence of actual effectiveness in reducing danger (Graham, 2019 ) while perhaps even increasing overall mortality by avoiding air travel in favor of driving (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ).

As with the literature on DGU, the available evidence supporting the effectiveness of specific gun laws in reducing gun violence is less than definitive (Koper et al., 2004 ; Hahn et al., 2005 ; Lee et al., 2017 ; Webster and Wintemute, 2015 ), leaving the utility of gun reform legislation open to debate and motivated reasoning. Several authors have argued that even if proposed gun control measures are unlikely to deter mass shooters, “doing something is better than nothing” (Fox and DeLateur, 2014 ) and that ineffective counter-terrorism responses are worthwhile if they reduce public fear (Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ). Crucially however, this perspective fails to consider the impact of gun control legislation on the fears of those who value guns for self-protection. For them, removing guns from law-abiding “good guys” while doing nothing to deter access to the “bad guys” who commit crimes is illogical anathema. Gun owners and gun advocates likewise reject the concept of “safe spaces” and regard the notion of “gun free zones” as a liability that invites rather than prevents acts of terrorism. In other words, gun control proposals designed to decrease fear have the opposite of their intended effect on those who view guns as symbols of personal safety, increasing rather than decreasing their fears independently of any actual effects on gun violence. Such policies are therefore non-starters, and will remain non-starters, for the sizeable proportion of Americans who regard guns as essential for self-preservation.

In 2006, Braman and Kahan noted that “the Great American Gun Debate… has convulsed the national polity for the better part of four decades without producing results satisfactory to either side” and argued that consequentialist arguments about public health risks based on cost–benefit analysis are trumped by the cultural meanings of guns to the point of being “politically inert” (Braman and Kahan, 2006 ). More than a decade later, that argument is iterated in this series on “What Guns Mean”. In this essay, it is further argued that persisting debates about the effectiveness of DGU and gun control legislation are at their heart trumped by shared concerns about personal safety, victimization, and mass shootings within a larger culture of fear, with polarized opinions about how to best mitigate those fears that are determined by the symbolic, cultural, and personal meanings of guns and gun ownership.

Coming full circle to the riddle, “Do guns kill people or do people kill people?”, a psychologically informed perspective rejects the question as a false dichotomy that can be resolved by the statement, “people kill people… with guns”. It likewise suggests a way forward by acknowledging both common fears and individual differences beyond the limited, binary caricature of the gun debate that is mired in endless arguments over disputed facts. For meaningful legislative change to occur, the debate must be steered away from its portrayal as two immutable sides caught between not doing anything on the one hand and enacting sweeping bans or repealing the 2nd Amendment on the other. In reality, public attitudes towards gun control are more nuanced than that, with support or opposition to specific gun control proposals predicted by distinct psychological and cultural factors (Wozniak, 2017 ) such that achieving consensus may prove less elusive than is generally assumed. Accordingly, gun reform proposals should focus on “low hanging fruit” where there is broad support such as requiring and enforcing universal background checks, enacting “red flag” laws balanced by guaranteeing gun ownership rights to law-abiding citizens, and implementing public safety campaigns that promote safe firearm handling and storage. Finally, the Dickey Amendment should be repealed so that research can inform public health interventions aimed at reducing gun violence and so that individuals can replace motivated reasoning with evidence-based decision-making about personal gun ownership and guns in society.

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Reducing gun violence: Stanford scholars tackle the issue

After 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, many Americans are asking, yet again, how to prevent future acts of senseless violence from occurring. What gun laws need to be changed? Why is it so difficult to pass regulations? How can Second Amendment rights be balanced with firearm safety? 

Stanford scholars have been studying these issues from a range of perspectives, including law, politics, economics, and medicine. Here are some of their findings.

Update: May 25, 2022: This story was originally published on Feb. 26, 2018, and has been updated to include new content.

Causes, impacts of gun violence

Uncovering the causes of gun violence has been a challenge, in part because research is limited by federal legislation that constrains research funding on the issue. Scholar Nigam Shah at the Stanford School of Medicine has written about how this has affected empirical study. But that has not deterred scholars from examining its impacts. David Studdert, also at the School of Medicine, has studied the devastating consequences of gun violence, particularly the risks it poses to public health.  

Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor of medicine and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), has also looked at the long-term impact of gun violence, specifically among American children who experienced a shooting at their school. Rossin-Slater found that they have higher rates of absenteeism, lower high school and college graduation rates, and by their mid-twenties, earn lower incomes.

Below is some of that research. 

Californians living with handgun owners more than twice as likely to die by homicide, study finds

Residents who don’t own a handgun but live with someone who does are significantly more likely to die by homicide compared with those in gun-free homes, research shows.

New study of gun violence in schools identifies long-term harms

Research from SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds that students exposed to school shootings face “lasting, persistent” adversity in their educational and long-term economic outcomes.

Shirin Sinnar on the Buffalo shooting, hate crimes, and domestic terrorism

In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Stanford Law School’s Shirin Sinnar discusses the scale of white supremacist violence in the U.S. and the rise of hate crimes.

Disconnect: The gap between gun violence and research in numbers

Gun violence is much discussed but little studied, largely due to federal decisions governing research funding. A new analysis highlights just how big the gap between the violence and our knowledge of it is. The answer? It’s huge.

Supporting students exposed to school shootings

Maya Rossin-Slater talks about her research into the mental health impact of severe school violence.

Panel discusses how shootings affect those unscathed by bullets

A panel of faculty members at the School of Medicine said shootings can affect the mental health of people close to the violence.

California handgun sales spiked after two mass shootings

In the six weeks after the Newtown and San Bernardino mass shootings, handguns sales jumped in California, yet there is little research on why – or on the implications for public health, according to a Stanford researcher.

Mass shootings: Public face of a much larger epidemic

While mass shootings have become the public face of gun violence, they account for less than 1% of the 40,000 firearm deaths each year.  

Short-term hospital readmissions for gun injuries cost $86 million a year

A study from Stanford researchers has found that readmissions account for 9.5% of the $911 million spent annually on gun-injury hospitalizations.

Supporting children through loss

Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann talks about how to help young people experiencing grief.

Firearm injuries in children, teens costly for U.S. health care system, Stanford study finds

The average cost of initial hospitalization to treat pediatric gun injuries is about $13,000 per patient and has risen in recent decades, a Stanford Medicine study found.

Investigating psychiatric illnesses of mass shooters

Ira Glick and his collaborators studied the psychiatric state of 35 mass shooters in the United States who survived the incidents, which took place between 1982 and 2019.

The silent cost of school shootings

SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds the average rate of antidepressant use among youths under age 20 rose by 21 percent in the local communities where fatal school shootings occurred.

New study analyzes recent gun violence research

Consensus is growing in recent research evaluating the impact of right-to-carry concealed handgun laws, showing that they increase violent crime, despite what older research says.

Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk

Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t.

Advice on how to cope with the threat of school shootings

Victor Carrion offers advice on how families can cope with the stress of school safety.

Reducing gun violence

Many Americans are demanding practical steps to reduce gun crime. One way is to have more stringent gun safety policies, such as legislation requiring guns to be stored safely, more stringent background checks, or as President Biden announced Tuesday, a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 

Research has shown that states with tighter policies save lives: One study by Stephanie Chao found that states with stricter gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and states with child prevention access laws are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group.

“If you put more regulations on firearms, it does make a difference,” said Chao, assistant professor of surgery and senior author of the study. “It does end up saving children’s lives.” Her analysis found that states with the strictest laws had a mortality rate of 2.6 per 100,000 and for states with the least strict laws, mortality rate was almost double at 5.0 per 100,000.  

John Donohue: One tragic week with two mass shootings and the uniquely American gun problem

In a Q&A, Stanford Law School gun law expert John J. Donohue III discusses mass shootings in the U.S., the challenges facing police when confronting powerful automatic weapons and the prospect of gun safety laws.

Lax state gun laws linked to more child gun deaths

States with strict gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and laws to keep guns away from minors are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group, a Stanford study found.

Improved gun buyer background checks would impede some mass shootings, Stanford expert says

Stanford Law Professor John Donohue says a background check system that was universal and effectively operated could impede gun acquisition by people who commit mass shootings.

How to solve more gun crimes without spending more money

Simple tweaks to how police process bullet casings could dramatically improve their forensic data.

Reducing civilian firepower would boost police and community safety, Stanford expert says

In addition to restricting the firepower a person can amass, Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue advocates efforts to build trust between communities and law enforcement agencies as a way to enhance both police and citizen safety.

Stricter gun laws reduce child and adolescent gun deaths, Stanford study finds

Laws that keep guns away from young people are especially strongly linked to lower rates of gun suicides in youth.

Gun legislation and policy

For nearly three decades, law Professor John Donohue III has studied what can be done to prevent gun violence in the United States. A lawyer and economist, Donohue explores how law and public policy are connected to gun violence, including how gun laws in the U.S. compare to other countries, as well as how legislation varies across the states, to better understand the effect that has on rates of violence. 

“The U.S. is by far the world leader in the number of guns in civilian hands,” Donohue explained . “The stricter gun laws of other ‘advanced countries’ have restrained homicidal violence, suicides and gun accidents – even when, in some cases, laws were introduced over massive protests from their armed citizens.” 

Here are some of his findings, and other research related to legislating gun safety in the U.S.

Stanford’s John Donohue on guns, mass shootings and the law in the U.S.

On Nov. 30, American students were once again the victims of a school shooting. Stanford law Professor John Donohue discusses the case and gun violence in the U.S.

How U.S. gun control compares to the rest of the world

While deaths from mass shootings are a relatively small part of the overall homicidal violence in America, they are particularly wrenching. The problem is worse in the U.S. than in most other industrialized nations. And it’s getting worse.

4 gun control steps U.S. needs now

John Donohue pens an opinion piece for CNN laying out four steps the United States should take to strengthen gun legislation.

Violent crime increases in right-to-carry states

Stanford Law School Professor John Donohue found that states that adopted right-to-carry concealed handgun laws have experienced a 13 to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws.

Another mass shooting: An update on U.S. gun laws

In a Q&A, John Donohue discusses gun safety law and legislative developments.

Stanford GSE holds teach-in on research into gun violence in schools

Education scholars look at the evidence behind policy ideas to address school shootings.

Will Americans ever think differently about guns?

Stanford medicine and law professor David Studdert thinks more public health evidence is needed before cultural attitudes around gun safety and violence will change.

In gun debate, both sides have evidence to back them up

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Gun control is back in the U.S. political debate, in the wake of mass shootings in California, Boulder and Atlanta.

Democrats see stricter gun control as a step toward addressing the problem. In March 2021, as the House of Representatives passed two gun control bills, Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the “ solutions will save lives .”

Many Republicans disagree, arguing as Sen. Ted Cruz has that proposed laws seeking to require background checks on all firearms sales and transfers and to ban assault weapons are “ ridiculous theater ” that fail to reduce mass shootings.

As two political scientists trained in data analysis , we set out to determine whether gun control legislation actually prevents mass shootings. We collected data on all mass shootings that occurred between February 1980 and February 2020. We then examined key information on the perpetrators, weapons used and laws in effect at the time of shooting.

Our research, which is yet to be published in an academic journal, suggests that there is statistical evidence to support both parties’ positions about gun control legislation.

While stricter gun control laws may make mass shootings slightly less common, our research suggests that the rhetoric of both parties may not tell the full story. Rather than federal gun control laws, policies that focus on violence prevention at the community or individual levels may be more effective at preventing mass shooting deaths.

Mass shootings in the past 40 years

We defined a mass shooting as a single incident in which a perpetrator with no connection to gang activity or organized crime shot and killed three or more people. This is similar to the definition Congress uses .

We found there were 112 of these events between 1980 and 2020; the number of mass shootings each year has increased over time. An overwhelming majority of mass shooters – 87% of them – obtained their firearms legally. Nearly all shooters – 93% – shot their victims in the same state where they obtained their weapons.

These facts suggest that existing gun laws and regulations governing gun purchases and firearms that cross state lines may not be working to reduce mass shootings. Our study did not address whether or how other forms of gun violence might be affected by those laws.

In fact, mass shootings tended to occur in states with stricter regulations. Of the states with the highest per capita rates of mass shootings, many – like Connecticut, Maryland and California – employ background checks and assault weapons bans.

By contrast, 18 states did not have a single mass shooting event over the entire 40-year period. Many of these states – like West Virginia, Wyoming and South Dakota – have high rates of gun ownership and relatively loose gun control laws.

But those data patterns don’t tell the full story of our analysis.

The effects of gun laws

Gun laws aren’t the only factors that affect where and when mass shootings occur. The number of police officers per capita, a community’s population density and crime rate, and other demographic characteristics such as unemployment rates and average income can also matter.

We used statistical methods to control for those factors, narrowing our analysis to find out whether various types of gun control laws affected the number of mass shootings or number of mass shooting deaths in each state each year.

Specifically, we examined the effects of four different types of gun control legislation: background checks; assault weapons bans; high-capacity magazine bans; and “ extreme risk protection order ” or “red flag laws” that let a court determine whether to confiscate the guns of someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.

We found that background check requirements, assault weapons bans and high-capacity magazine bans each reduce the number of mass shootings in the United States – but only by a small amount. For instance, enacting a statewide assault weapons ban decreases the number of mass shootings in the state by one shooting every six years. And none of the four types of gun control legislation correlate with fewer total mass shooting deaths.

And laws that remove an individual’s right to own firearms if that individual poses a risk to the community do not affect the number of mass shooting events.

Beyond gun control

Our analysis suggests that Americans who want to make mass shootings less frequent and less deadly may want to think beyond gun control legislation.

Statistically, mass shootings tend to occur in large, densely populated states with higher income and education levels per capita. While these states often respond to mass shootings by passing gun control legislation, it may be that alternative avenues are more successful.

For example, we find that increasing the number of police officers per capita decreases the number of mass shootings.

There is a wide variety of policy options designed to prevent mass shootings. The American Psychological Association suggests a comprehensive community approach that works to identify prevention strategies that bring public safety officials, schools, public health systems and faith-based groups together to reduce gun violence.

Aaron Stark , who says he was almost a mass shooter, explains that mass shootings can be an act of desperation resulting from frustration, stress and an individual’s perception that they lack power. This is in line with a new U.S. Secret Service report that suggests politicians may need to think beyond the accessibility of guns. Violence prevention strategies that focus on interpersonal and community relations may be more effective than gun control legislation.

Framing the debate

Many policy options involve value judgments stemming from beliefs about the U.S. Constitution and the power of government to regulate guns.

Among people who think that restricting gun access reduces mass shootings, people disagree over whether the country should prioritize the individual freedoms of gun owners or the safety and peace of mind of non-gun owners. These differing views can reflect different interpretations of the extent to which the Constitution protects the rights of individuals to keep and bear arms.

States have a role to play, too. Federal gun policy covers the entire nation. But our data indicates that attention to state and local factors can play an important role in preventing mass shootings.

In the end, gun control remains a debate about facts and context, complicated by a disagreement over constitutional values.

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Gun Control Argumentative Essay: 160 Topics + How-to Guide [2024]

After the recent heartbreaking mass shootings, the gun control debate has reached its boiling point.

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Arms possession is a right enshrined in the US constitution. Yet, more and more people voice their concerns about owning firearms. Mass shootings, suicides, and abuse are among the top arguments for stricter laws. Here, we’ve collected plenty of insightful pro-gun control topics for you to explore.

• Pro-gun radicalism and American fears. Guns and fear often go hand in hand. Studies suggest that gun owners are more prone to phobias and distrust. The topic requires showing the irrational essence of gun ownership .
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• Why background checks don’t always work. Background checks are essential. Yet, they don’t always prevent ineligible individuals from acquiring a firearm . This “why we need gun control” essay shines a light on the procedure’s flaws.
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• Rising gun deaths: a call for action. The high firearm-related death rate is a notorious problem. In the United States, the number is consistently above average. In this gun control argumentative essay, it becomes a reason for stricter gun policies.
• Reducing firearm ownership is not decreasing civil liberties . The topic handles primary gun control opponents’ counterarguments. The key reasoning is that gun ownership is not a universal human right. In this essay, you can explore the notion of civil liberties .
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• Gun control as an answer to violent murders.
• Do firearm restrictions harm democracy?
• The perverseness of being pro-life and pro-gun.
• Do guns in households cause more accidental deaths?
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• Debunking “guns for self-defense ” myths.
• Gun control’s positive impact on hospitalization rates.
• Does better gun control improve life quality?
• Firearms and suicidal behavior : another case for restrictions.
• What fears drive opponents of gun laws ?
• Do firearms restrictions increase the value of life?
• Do gun laws reduce societal costs?
• Restricting the carry of firearms for societal benefit.
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• Firearms: used far less for defense than for attacks.
• More guns – more violence
• Stop the wrong people from getting guns
• Revision of the Second Amendment to prevent human tragedies
• The Second Amendment and gun control can co-exist
• The thin line between self-defense and deadly force

Stricter laws can’t solve every problem. In cases such as prostitution and drug use, they are even detrimental. But does this reasoning also apply to gun control? Find it out by discussing its disadvantages with one of the following engaging prompts:

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• Gun control laws : a waste of taxpayers’ money. Firearm restrictions have economic consequences. Additional gun control measures are not free— they require more monetary resources. Besides, stricter gun control deprives many citizens of firearm-related jobs.
• Firearm regulations deny the right to self-defense . Self-defense is a constitutional right granted by the Founding Fathers. When an attacker is armed, defensive gun use remains the only option. Gun control diminishes the capacity of citizens to protect themselves.
• Guns don’t breed crime—society does. Crime is a colossal social challenge. It is vital to direct resources for crime prevention and management. Yet, gun control is not the ultimate solution to this problem.
• Gun control laws are not fruitful . One of the purposes of gun control is to curb the gun violence epidemic. Yet, whether it works or not is debatable. This “is greater gun control a great idea” essay demonstrates gun control’s ineffectiveness.
• Gun control : limiting citizens’ freedoms. Gun control is not only fruitless, but it’s also unconstitutional. The right to possess and carry guns is civil liberty. Firearm restrictions violate the essence of the country’s constitution.
• Gun ownership increases the sense of security. Besides, firearms perform an important psychological function. They give their owners a sense of safety, bringing emotional comfort. Gun control takes away the knowledge that one can protect oneself.
• Firearms black market: a bigger problem. Gun control will not prevent determined individuals from obtaining firearms. Restricting access to legal guns could prompt people to buy weapons from black markets.
• Knives, hardware, and vehicles are lethal weapons , too. Firearms are only a small part of a criminal’s arsenal. For instance, they frequently use cars as deadly weapons. Firearm control can’t always prevent those determined to harm someone from doing it.
• Eliminating guns: an oversimplified approach. Gun control proponents often oversimplify the problem. Access to firearms is not the root cause of gun-related deaths and violence. The phenomenon has multiple origins that you could examine.
• Disarming Americans kills their national identity. Guns are deeply ingrained in American culture and national identity. The right to bear them has a profound symbolic notion. This “against gun control” essay covers the meaning of firearms in American nationhood.
• Gun control hinders African American emancipation.
• How does gun control incite government tyranny?
• Gun control doesn’t prevent violent behavior.
• The racist history behind firearm restrictions .
• The Second Amendment: the cornerstone of gun rights .
• Firearms as an answer to domestic violence .
• Would gun control make the country safer ?
• Firearm ownership : gaining control over life.
• Gun control and the demise of democracy.
• The empowering role of firearms .
• Gun control as a method of disabling citizens.
• What’s your position on the statement: “ Assault is not a weapon but a behavior”?
• Why gun control laws should be scrapped .
• Is there a link between firearm ownership and crime ?
• Banning guns means more black markets.
• Gun control is not the answer – education is
• Gun culture propaganda starts with cartoons
• Mass media is to blame: murder is an easy route to fame
• Gun control : why not ban everything that poses a potential threat?
• Criminals don’t obey gun control laws

Firearm violence has developed into a significant human rights issue. It affects our right to life and health. Not only that, but it can also limit our access to education. Gun violence disrupts school processes and endangers student safety. An essay on this issue gives you many different directions to explore.

• Firearm violence as a racial equity challenge. Studies have shown that some ethnicities are more likely to experience gun violence than others. African Americans , in particular, are affected by the issue. Your essay can investigate how firearm violence reflects and aggravates discrimination.
• The relationship between mental health and mass shootings. Mental illness is the prime suspect as the root of gun violence. Researchers often consider it a determiner for mass shootings . For this topic, it’s vital to analyze literature regarding the correlation.
• Preventing and responding to firearm-related deaths. Each year, thousands of US citizens die due to gun violence . As the rate of firearm death rises, the issue becomes exponentially troubling. Decreasing the gun-related mortality rate is a topic of high priority.
• The socio-economic roots of firearm violence . Gun violence has pronounced socio-economic causes. Low income and life in a deprived neighborhood are among the most significant risk factors. Examining how certain circumstances prompt gun violence is instrumental in alleviating the issue.
• Long-term psychological effects of gun violence . Survivors and witnesses of gun violence experience grave psychological consequences, including PTSD and depression. Your essay can present gun violence as an extremely traumatic event.
• The contagion effect in mass shootings . The contagion effect describes the spread of behavior. You can use it to explain the epidemic of gun violence. The topic requires you to look into the phenomenon.
• Intimate partner violence : the role of firearms. The severity of intimate partner violence is related to how accessible guns are to abusers. Many domestic homicides involve the use of weapons. This gun ownership essay prompts to explain how firearms contribute to the phenomenon.
• Mass shootings and weapon availability. This topic prompts you to investigate the mass shootings aspect of gun violence. In particular, it’s concerned with the link between gun accessibility and mass murder . You could use quotes and statistics regarding gun laws to establish the connection.
• Gun violence : A poignant human rights issue. Firearm violence causes psychological, social, and financial harm. Its victims suffer from long-term consequences in the form of mental disorders. It’s unwise to overestimate the issue’s global burden.
• Gun violence against women and girls. Firearms violence negatively impacts the life quality of women. Women and girls frequently become victims of gun attacks. Here, you could discuss how deep-seated misogyny contributes to the problem.

• The global burden of guns .
• Firearms violence: A community health problem .
• The reasons behind gun violence in the United States .
• A gender profile of firearm violence .
• School shootings : portrayal in media.
• What are the economic consequences of firearm violence?
• Preventing gun violence in vulnerable neighborhoods.
• The role of toxic masculinity in gun violence .
• Discuss the effect of firearm ownership regulations .
• How can the government reduce firearm violence in low-income neighborhoods?
• Psychological consequences of school shootings.
• Supporting school shooting survivors.
• What are the effects of gun ownership on violence?
• The epidemiology of mass shootings .
• Mass shootings from a sociological perspective.
• Fighting against gun violence: social activism .
• Gun violence : the primary cause of premature death.
• What ethical problems occur regarding mass shootings ?
• How does the media promote gun violence?
• The health implications of gun violence .

Gun laws are vital to ensure the safe handling and purchase of firearms. Regulations come from the federal as well the state level. It makes gun laws confusing for many. If you’d like to entangle the issue, this section is for you.

• Major loopholes in gun laws . Federal and state laws are vulnerable to exploitation. It means they contain gaps endangering public safety. The “Charleston loophole” is the most notorious example. You can inspect it along with other deficiencies.
• Gun laws : too strict or too weak? The harshness of gun laws is a debatable issue. Given the present gun violence epidemic, the answer might appear evident. Still, this topic encourages viewing the problem from multiple perspectives.
• Prohibiting the possession of assault weapons. Assault weapons are another intriguing facet of America’s gun problem. Currently, there is no federal law prohibiting their ownership. Using such a weapon in a shooting increases mortality and traumatism.
• The problem with private gun sales. Private firearms trade results in excessive gun accessibility. Private sellers are allowed to bypass crucial standards such as sales recordkeeping. The situation poses a threat to communal well-being.
• Mental illness in the context of firearms control legislation. In the context of gun laws, mental illness is a prominent notion. The term and its usage in state and federal laws have nuances. You can interpret them in your essay.
• Using deadly force to defend property. Firearms constitute a part of the “deadly force” notion. Regarding the defense of private property, its use is not always justifiable. This gun law essay proposes to reflect on the norms of firearm use.
• Nuances and limitations of the stand-your-ground law. The stand-your-ground law is the subject of heated debate. It’s easy to misinterpret it. It most notably concerns the boundaries of gun use. Yet, knowing what is allowed is essential in self-defense .
• The need for federal registration laws. Although there is no national gun registry, its introduction could be beneficial. It would allow law enforcement agencies to track firearms more efficiently. In your essay, you could research other advantages of federal registration as well.
• Differences in gun laws at the state level . Besides federal laws, each state has its own firearms policies. Federal and state regulations tend to vary considerably. It could be interesting to analyze how gun use and possession regulations differ from state to state.
• Buying guns without a background check: a dangerous loophole. Background checks are indispensable under federal law . Still, a loophole makes it possible to sell firearms to incompetent and dangerous individuals. Say what could be done to make background checks more efficient.
• Are tougher gun laws a solution?
• Politically polarizing firearm policies .
• What are the public’s views of federal firearms laws?
• Gun licenses and political affiliation.
• Firearm registration and accessibility of guns to criminals .
• Gun laws : State vs. Federal.
• How are state gun laws and firearm mortality connected?
• Gun laws from the constitutional point of view .
• Understanding the duty to retreat in US legislation.
• Gun-friendly state laws and criminality.

• Open carry and concealed carry laws.
• The extent of federal gun laws .
• Concealed carry: not covered by the Second Amendment .
• Should the US government enforce firearm registration?
• Limiting concealed carry under the influence.
• Weaker gun laws equal less public safety.
• Gun control policies: Democrats vs. Republicans.
• The benefits of a universal background check.
• Analyze gun laws in the state of Missouri .
• Restoring the federal assault weapons ban.

There are few topics more controversial than gun control. That’s why it’s the perfect base for a good debate. Controversies surrounding gun control include questions of race, gender, and ethics.

• Gun ownership: gender, ethnicity, and class . The demographic portrait of a gun owner is a politically loaded subject. Despite the possible implications, it necessitates in-depth research. This topic suggests considering gun owners’ social class, gender, and ethnicity.
• The racial element in American gun culture . Racism and gun control are more connected than might appear. A range of opinions exists. Evaluating their interconnection might yield compelling results. In your essay, investigate American gun culture through the prism of racial inequality.
• Firearms ownership: do we need incentives or fees? Gun ownership has several advantages, such as a sense of security . Nevertheless, its less positive effects could eclipse them. Discussing whether gun ownership should be discouraged or encouraged could help you write an engaging paper.
• The usage of firearms in self-defense. The efficacy and frequency of self-defense weapon use are essential for the gun control debate . Analyzing these factors could help establish the validity of the argument.
• Gun ownership regulation: the Swiss example. In terms of firearm possession, Switzerland is a liberal country. It has lax laws regarding the acquisition and usage of guns. What can Switzerland teach the US about gun control ?
• The ethicality of firearm ownership. It is common to examine whether gun ownership is constitutional. Looking at its ethicality is a rarer approach. This controversial gun control essay topic helps to bridge the knowledge gap.
• Constitutional contradictions regarding gun rights . The Constitution’s meaning is not as self-evident as it may appear. Whether gun rights are constitutional or unconstitutional is at the core of the debate.
• Do gun rights promote vigilantism? Vigilante violence is a severe community challenge. A vengeful armed vigilante is a threat to their society. In your paper, investigate the role of gun rights in contributing to the problem.
• Preventing criminals from accessing guns. How effective is gun control in stopping gun violence? Contradictory opinions denying or supporting its productiveness need scrutiny. For this paper, you can use statistics and facts to clarify the situation.
• The ideology behind gun control and rights. The gun control debate has long gone beyond objective arguments. By now, the problem entails larger political implications. Gun ownership or its absence strongly correlates with political behavior.
• Interpretations of the Second Amendment regarding gun control .
• Does unrestricted gun ownership lead to more shootings ?
• The effectiveness of firearm restrictions.
• Multiple origins of gun-related crime .
• Are gun restrictions instrumental for public safety?
• Gun control as a measure against crime and gun violence .
• Firearm control rhetoric: an analysis.
• Should the public use of guns remain legal?
• Gun control : creating optimal policies.
• Presidential elections and gun control rhetoric.
• Limiting access to guns: is it useful or debilitating?
• Evaluating gun control and its impact on crime.
• The future of gun laws.
• The political battle over gun control .
• Gun policies and common sense.
• How relevant is firearms control?
• What effect does gun ownership have on domestic abuse ?
• The economics of gun control.
• Gun control: Is it saving lives or narrowing freedoms ?
• Should you ever be able to buy a gun without a license or permit?

Gun control pros and cons have been discussed and thoroughly analyzed countless times. Both advocates and opponents have stuck to their positions, leaving the issue unresolved. Here are a few important pros and cons:

Points made in support of gun control (pros)

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• Gun control statistics reveal that although the United States accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, U.S. residents own 50% of guns in the world.
• When gun deaths statistics for different countries were expressed as the number of gun deaths in a population of a million people, the United States was ranked below South Africa.

Points against gun control (cons)

• The very idea of gun control goes against the US constitution that allows people the right to safeguard their lives. People need guns to defend themselves when being attacked by others. Additionally, firearms can provide a sense of comfort and security. It would be undemocratic to take away a person’s right to feel safe.
• Since the Second Amendment upholds the right to gun ownership, it should not be restricted. It seems dangerous to start altering the constitution whenever we see fit. In doing so, we might create a precedent that others can use to promote more harmful agendas.

Whichever side you chose, now you already have a few persuasive arguments. Let’s move on to the actual writing part.

Writing an impressive essay on gun control can be a bit difficult without proper organization. No matter what type of paper you are going to work on, you’ll need some detailed planning and thorough research.

Follow these five steps to write a perfect gun control essay:

• Define what gun control is. Whether you are writing an argumentative, persuasive, or any other type of paper, the first thing you need is context. Use the definitions that are most appropriate for your essay. For example, you might start with a dictionary definition. Then, add some general facts about types of firearms. Next, you might give statistics on gun control , such as ownership and reasons for it.
• Write a gun control thesis statement. Besides context and definitions, any essay introduction requires a thesis. It’s the message you’re going to argue in the following paragraphs. So, work on it before writing the rest of the paper. Make sure your gun control thesis statement is concise and easy to understand. You can use an online thesis generator if that requirement is hard for you to achieve.
• One option is to use studies that have collected plentiful information over the years.
• If you are writing a pro-gun control essay, you can use studies or statistics on how guns owned by private citizens have killed innocent people. You can also cite cases where students used their parents’ guns to commit violent crimes in school.
• If you are arguing against gun control, cite studies proving that private gun ownership saves lives. You could also add research revealing the positive effects of gun ownership.
• Organize your paper. Of course, the content and organization vary for each particular essay. The facts remain the same. It is the way that you arrange and present them that will create a concrete argument. That’s why you should make sure to draft an outline before you get started.
• End with a strong conclusion. In there, you should summarize your essay and reiterate the most important points. Don’t forget to restate and develop your statement based on the facts you mentioned. If it’s not an argumentative essay, present your findings and suggestions about the issue.

As you can see, writing an impressive gun control essay takes time and effort. It also requires deep research. If you’re finding this task too challenging, you can order an essay from our custom writing service. We provide 100% original papers at reasonable prices.

You might also be interested in:

• Top Ideas for Argumentative or Persuasive Essay Topics
• Best Argumentative Research Paper Topics
• 97 Inspirational & Motivational Argumentative Essay Topics
• Great Persuasive & Argumentative Essay on Divorce
• Proposal Essay Topics and Ideas – Easy and Interesting
• Free Exemplification Essay Examples

🤔 Gun Control FAQ

To create a great title, you should express your point of view in a concise and eye-catching manner. A creative title grabs your readers’ interest. Try to make up an unusual keyword combination, or paraphrase a metaphor or a set expression. Using two opposite ideas works well, too.

If you want to spark a discussion, you need to make an educated standpoint choice. For a good debate essay, make sure to thoroughly study the topic. A list of pros and cons will help you gain a deeper insight. Then decide where you stand before you start writing.

Good persuasive topics provoke emotions. A great topic for an essay is an issue that concerns nearly everyone in society. For example, gun control or animal testing may be good topics for college essays.

Good thesis statements give a clearly formulated opinion. You need to state whether you are for or against gun control. Either way, the author’s position must be based on convincing arguments and facts.

🔗 References

• Gun Control Latest Events
• The Link Between Firearms, Crime and Gun Control
• Gun Control Pros and Cons
• Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
• A Brief History of the National Rifle Association
• Gun Control Essays at Bartleby
• Argumentative Essays on Gun Control
• Gun Control Issues, Public Health, and Safety
• Universal Background Checks: Giffords
• Gun Violence: Amnesty International
• Facts on US Gun Ownership: Pew Research Center
• Gun Control in the US: Encyclopedia Britannica
• Gun Control: The Debate and Public Policy: Social Studies
• Guns and Gun Control: The New York Times
• Gun Control Topic Overview: Gale
• US Gun Policy: Global Comparisons: Council of Foreign Relations
• US Gun Debate: Four Dates that Explain How We Got Here: BBC News
• Gun Control and Gun Rights: US News
• Why Gun Control Is So Contentious in the US: Live Science
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my thing is this it’s not the guns it’s people now if we could make it to where you’ll have to possess a gun ownership license kinda like a drivers license that would solve most problems don’t you think

I agree with you, Richard.

I am trying to cite this website for my English paper on “NoodleTools” and there are multiple things I can’t find. Like the publisher, publication date, “permalink,” and more. I really like this article though!

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My opinion if I may is that guns should be in the hands of law enforcement and military. If a person wants a gun for protection they only need to call 911 on their cell or landline if a person is frightened to take steps which are many, to ensure your safety guns do kill people and there have been far too many innocent people dying! Football games schools churches concerts outdoor activities and or indoor activities places just about anywhere and people in danger it is terrible. What has become to civilization where people are going about their innocent daily lives and get killed!!!!! What is wrong with this picture? Many years ago American citizens did not have to live in such danger as it is today, the government does nothing including NRA. Congress does nothing, sadly we live in a dangerous and volatile world and something needs to be done about this to prevent innocent children and adults from dangerous people who have guns in their hands the government should protect America from harm and danger!!!!

This helped me with my essay due. I wanted to do it on gun control, but I had no idea where to start. This really helped to develop my thesis statement and claim to turn in. Now I just have to write 8 pages on it. 🙂 Wish me luck, lol.

Do you still have a copy of this essay ?

Good luck, Danielle! 🙂 Glad the article was useful for you.

I think you should add how guns can be a big cause in the world because guns are a bad thing.

Thanks for the advice, Robert!

This helped me with a 5-paragraph essay I need due.

I’m happy the article was useful for you, Dulce!

This article saved me so much time, thank you!!!

Glad to help, Michael!

Thank you! This post helped me a lot with my essay.

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Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Gun Control

Read Excellent Examples of Persuasive Essay About Gun Control

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Are you looking for inspiration for your persuasive essay about gun control? You are at the right place!

Gun control is a controversial but common topic for students. But with so many arguments on both sides, students often find it challenging.

However, reading some sample essays can be a good start! 

This blog provides several example essays on the topic of gun control that you can read for inspiration. Moreover, you'll get tips to help you craft your own persuasive essay about the topic.

So let’s get started!

• 1. Persuasive Essay Examples on Gun Control 
• 2. Persuasive Essay Against Gun Control
• 3. Persuasive Essay on Pro-Gun Control
• 4. Argumentative Essay About Gun Control
• 5. Steps to Write a Persuasive Essay
• 6. Persuasive Essay Topics about Gun Control

Persuasive Essay Examples on Gun Control 

Start with these general persuasive essay samples on gun control. They will help you understand what makes a good gun control essay.

Check out these examples:

Persuasive Essay about Gun Control

Persuasive Essay Examples Gun Control

Want persuasive examples on other topics? Check out our persuasive essay examples blog to find samples on a variety of topics.

Persuasive Essay Against Gun Control

Check out these few examples of anti-gun control essays. These will help you understand the arguments of those who are against gun control.

Why Gun Control is Bad

Argumentative Essay Against Gun Control

Check out this short video below on the pros and cons of gun control to find good arguments for both sides.

Persuasive Essay on Pro-Gun Control

Some people believe that stricter gun control laws should be a priority to prevent gun violence. Here are some examples that will introduce you to their arguments in detail.

Why We Need Gun Control Essay

The Pros of Gun Control Essay

Free Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

Argumentative Essay About Gun Control

An argumentative essay about gun control is a paper that looks at both sides of the debate on this important issue. The goal is to make sure that you can support your position with facts, figures, and logical arguments.

Read these argumentative essay examples about gun control to see how it's done!

Steps to Write a Persuasive Essay

Now that you have read some good examples of persuasive essays about gun control, it's time for you to start writing your own paper.

But how exactly do you write a good essay by yourself? Here are some steps you should follow:

Step 1- Research the Topic

Before you start writing your essay, it’s important to do some research on gun control.

Read up on the different arguments and viewpoints on the issue to get a better understanding of what you are discussing. Gather as many facts and evidence as you need.

Make sure to take notes, so you can cite anything you use later.

Step 2- Make an Outline

Having a persuasive essay outline will help you stay organized and on track.

Start by making an outline of the main points you want to discuss in your essay. Then, break it down into subsections with specific facts and arguments.

In short, make sure to create a clear structure for your essay.

Step 3- Take a Stance

After doing your research, decide which side of the debate you agree with. Choose one side of the debate. Decide if you're going to argue for or against gun control. Make sure to choose an opinion that you can defend with logical arguments. Moreover, stay consistent throughout your paper about your stance.

Step 4- Support Your Arguments

When making your arguments, make sure to back them up with evidence. Use data, statistics, and quotes from experts to strengthen your points. In addition, you should use rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos to make your essay more effective.

Step 5- Address the Opposition  

Make sure to address any counterarguments that you come across while researching or writing your essay. This will show your readers that you have done your research and considered both sides of the argument.

Step  6- Proofread and Revise

Before submitting your paper, make sure to proofread for any mistakes or typos. Having a second pair of eyes look over your work can help catch any errors that you may have missed.

Take your time to revise and edit your essay. Make sure that each point is clearly laid out and supported with facts, figures, and logic. This is important to make sure that the essay is compelling and error-free!

Persuasive Essay Topics about Gun Control

Wondering which gun topic you should write about? Here are a few persuasive essay topics related to gun control that you can choose.

• The Impact of Stricter Gun Control Laws on Reducing Gun Violence
• The Role of Background Checks in Preventing Firearms Access for Criminals
• Mental Health and Gun Control: Addressing the Connection
• Gun Control vs. Second Amendment Rights: Finding a Balance
• The Necessity of Banning Assault Weapons for Public Safety
• Why Gun Control Won’t End School Shootings
• The Influence of Lobbying Groups like the NRA on Gun Control Policies
• The International Perspective: Comparing Gun Control Measures in Different Countries
• How Can Gun Control Help Suicide Prevention
• The Economics of Gun Control: Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Stricter Regulations

Want persuasive topics on other subjects? Check out our list of 200+ engaging and interesting persuasive essay topics to get topic ideas.

To sum it up for you,

Gun control is an important issue that needs to be discussed in our society. The example essays in this blog have helped to show different arguments for and against gun control. In addition, you got some useful steps on how to write a persuasive essay about this topic.

Whether you are for or against gun control, make sure to conduct thorough research and use evidence when writing your paper.

So keep these steps in mind and start writing your own gun control essay today!

If you need further help with your essay on gun control, don't worry! 

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gun Control — Gun Control in the United States

Gun Control in The United States

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Published: Jul 17, 2018

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