Essay, Research Paper: Private Ownership Of Guns

Topics for conversation in this report will include:
1. Gun Control and the Markets
2. Victims vs. Criminals
3. Interpretation of Data
Gun control assumes some fundamental things to hold true. It assumes that all people are law abiding, responsible, and well intended; we know this is not the case or their would not be a gun debate. Since the above does not hold true we have markets that will work against gun control, called “Black Markets”. Gun control works for the normal market, where there is a series of checks and balances to keep guns out of the hands of known criminals and people with mental disorders through background checks and waiting periods. What happens with the people that are not allowed to buy a gun because of their background? They say “OK” and are kept from buying guns. WRONG this is where some, not all, turn to the “Black Market”. The “Black Market” has only one check and balance, risk vs. reward. How much can be charged for a gun vs. the legal problems that can be caused for the seller and buyer. If the risk is worth the reward we have a “Black Market” where people can buy and sell guns without the controls of the normal market, but are under pressure of legal action if caught. The stronger the laws are restricting gun ownership in our “Normal Market” the more demand for “Black Market” guns will grow. This market shift was seen during the probation of alcohol and the resulting “Black Markets” for production and distribution of the contraband. We should remember the social unrest that accompanied that “Black Market” occurrence.
The argument Polsby makes is “the higher the number of victims a criminal assumes to be armed, the higher will be the risk-the price-of assaulting them.” This is what I call victims vs. criminal evaluation. This creates yet another market, the one of victims. I see a demand and supply curve for victims where price is actually the amount of risk a criminal is willing to take. As the victims get guns we shift from S1 to S2 and the price “risk” increases for the criminals. This is the second amendment at work!!

This is why I believe that we need to be armed as a deterrent, like the police, to keep people that might otherwise harm us wondering if they may get harmed in the process. Gun control allows the criminal to KNOW that their victims are not armed and allows them to “dominate a hostile transaction”.
Kellermann reports some data that he has collected for his position that gun control will help stop gun related deaths. His data is from a very small pool of “three urban counties that lack Hispanic citizens” so his study is not a strong national picture of what is happing in America. The largest thing I see him reporting is that there are social issues, which have nothing to do with guns, domestic assaults and alcoholism. The result of the overshadowing social issues is that no one intervenes on behalf of the victims until for whatever reason their only defense or offense is to use a gun. This has less to do with gun control and more to do with social intervention. I find his data not worth reporting on, since he reports it has “...limitations [that] warrant comment.” I would have to agree with this statement: “NRA’s position asserts that gun control would disarm the law-abiding citizenry and leave the “bad guys” with a monopoly on guns.”


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