I Need Help With My Homework On Policy Analysis

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Assignment: Policy Analysis (1100 Words)

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OVERVIEW: Debates over the nature and causes of social issues and problems necessarily leads to policy debates over what to do about these phenomena. For this last assignment, you are to construct a policy analysis. Doing a policy analysis means describing the scope of a social issue or problem, recognizing distinct theories of causation, identifying & describing key interventions or proposals, and assessing their potential impacts using data or arguments.

Here you are to construct an analysis on existing or proposed policies designed to reduce gun violence in the U.S. Here are the instructions (See my recorded presentation that goes over these steps to help guide you through them. Makes sure you address all three questions included below): (A &B – IS THE TEXTBOOK REFERENCES WITH PAGE NUMBERS IN THE VIDEO.. USE IN THE ESSAY PLEASE)

TEXTBOOK TO USE AS 1 OF THE REFERENCES WITH PAGE #’S INCLUDED:

Alvarez, A., & Bachman, R. (2021). Chapter 1 Defining Violence. In Violence: The enduring

problem (4th ed, SAGE Publishing, Inc.

1) Describe the Scope of the Problem: After reviewing the most recent analysis by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions, 2020 Gun Deaths in the U.S. (posted directly below this assignment), briefly describe a finding in the report that you find particularly concerning about the social problem of gun violence in the U.S. (for example, the report covers suicide, homicide, disproportionate group impacts and changes over time and other matters). Be sure to provide specific data on the finding you describe.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf

2) Policy Options and Debates. Below I have listed a select number of policies that have been advocated as a way to reduce gun violence. Choose ONE of these to focus on in your policy analysis, Note that this listing is not exhaustive, but is designed to reflect some of the current policies and debates that have occurred and been proposed on the federal level after the recent tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde.

· Universal Background Checks for Purchasing Firearms

· Bans on "Assault" weapons

· Extreme Risk Protection Orders or "Red Flag Laws"

· Age Requirements for Purchasing "Assault Weapons"

· Increased Firearm Access/Availability & "Defensive Gun Use" (DGU)

· "Hardening" Targets - Eliminating "Gun-Free Zones"

After choosing the policy you want to focus on, address the following sub-prompts for your analysis: A) What is the objective of the policy in terms of how it would seek to reduce gun violence? B) What particular groups or individuals are impacted by this policy or what social risks or conditions does this policy hope to address to reduce the risk to gun violence? C) What arguments are there for AND AGAINST this particular policy, and what data is used to back up these arguments? D) Provide an argument for why this policy would be effective at addressing the scope of the problem identified earlier in your analysis. Provide an argument for why or why not.

You must use at least THREE SOURCES in constructing your analysis (NOT including the 2020 Gun Deaths in the U.S. publication used to address the first part of this analysis), provided for you in the submodules below, categorized by specific policy options. Note that there are more than three available sources listed for you to choose, and part of the assignment is for YOU to choose what you consider to be the most informative sources. Remember that you are to summarize the arguments both for and against a particular policy, so make sure that you include sources that also provides a critique (many of the sources listed below present arguments for and against a policy).

if you choose to focus on background checks or restricting access to "assault weapons, the "What Are We Doing About Guns" section in Alvarez and Bachman (pp. 124-129) can be used as one of the three sources to use for the assignment, including background on the passage of the "Brady Law" in the 1990s.

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Another methodological issue related to estimating the extent of defensive gun use is how often “self-protective behavior” is actually justifiable as such. For example, drug dealers often carry guns to protect themselves from robberies, but should this be classified as self-protection, since the enterprise is illegal to begin with? Interviews with incarcerated felons confirm their use of guns for protection when engaging in illicit or illegal activity.86 Should we view defensive gun use in these cases in the same way as for any other case? Is a homeowner who uses a gun to protect herself from a burglar the same as a drug dealer defending himself from armed robbers? We can also think of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida in which an unarmed black man—Trayvon Martin—was confronted by a member of a community watch—George Zimmerman—for ostensibly suspicious behavior; after a brief confrontation, Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder and was ultimately found not guilty after a trial. This controversial case certainly illustrates the problematic nature of legally and socially defining legitimate defensive gun uses, not to mention the even trickier issue of trying to enumerate such uses. These are complicated issues, and the whole debate is made even more difficult by the fact that the controversy over how much guns provide protection versus increasing violence is as much an ideological debate as an empirical one. The same is true for the gun control debate, to which we now turn.

What Are We Doing About Guns?

Gun Control Legislation.

The role of guns in U.S. society and their regulation is a highly contested issue that is informed as much by politics, belief, and popular culture as it is by research. Some of this debate also revolves around the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The term militia in the amendment creates some confusion, since it isn’t clear if it means that only a select group of citizens who serve as soldiers have the right to bear arms or if it is an individual right. While there is controversy about what this amendment actually guarantees Americans, the Second Amendment is inextricably linked to our current gun culture and the debate on gun control.

Gun control legislation has been introduced at many levels, including the federal, state, and local levels, but the laws discussed here represent federal efforts at gun control legislation, except where noted. The majority of gun control measures to date have been generally focused in three main areas and have consisted of the following: regulations intended to reduce the supply and overall availability of guns; regulations designed to limit the availability of guns to high-risk groups, such as felons; and regulations calculated to affect how guns are used, including such things as antitheft measures and locks.87 Today, the debate about gun control sometimes intensifies after a significant tragedy, such as a school or workplace shooting. These debates have only intensified in the years since 2015, which saw a record number of mass shootings in places such as Colorado Springs, Colorado; San Bernardino, California; Jacksonville, Florida; Charleston, South Carolina; and many, many other locations. Tragically, one mass shooting occurred, on average, every single day of 2015.

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Since then, we have had shootings in places such as Parkland, Florida; the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; and the Chabad of Poway in California, among many others. Ironically, data indicate that since 1963, more Americans have died from shootings (homicides, suicides) than have died from all the wars combined that the United States has been involved in.89

After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, President Obama declared he would make gun control a “central issue” during his second term. Of course, gun control is frequently debated after a mass shooting, but the debate rarely leads to action. However, many felt the massacre of 20 innocent first graders significantly changed the landscape, and this sentiment was expressed by President Obama when he stated, “This time, the words need to lead to action.”90 A task force was subsequently assembled, and a number of legislative initiatives were introduced that included such things as requiring background checks for all sales, including sales at gun shows; reinstating the assault weapons ban; banning armor-piercing ammunition; and other steps designed to reduce the toll that gun violence takes in our society. These measures, however, were never implemented. Similarly, after the mass shooting in San Bernardino in December 2015, a number of U.S. senators tried to introduce a variety of gun control initiatives that included such things as expanded background checks for those buying guns on the Internet and at gun shows or prohibiting gun sales to those on terrorism watch lists, but as with the previous spate of proposed gun control legislation, they were defeated in Congress. One recent mass murder appears to have led to change, at least at the state level. After a troubled former student legally purchased an AR-15–style assault rifle and opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 students and school staff members dead, surviving students turned their grief and social media expertise into action. Their media campaign produced a wave of activism across the country, rallying tens of thousands of students to march in Washington, DC (“March for Our Lives”) for stronger control legislation and to hold other local rallies. Rallies and marches also spread across the globe in support of the U.S. students.

Photo 4.1 Sign at march for our lives rally. What measures do you think should be taken to reduce gun violence?

iStock.com/mauropedro1969

Although their voices did not result in action at the federal level, the Republican governor in Florida, Rick Scott, along with members of the Republican-controlled Florida state legislature, moved quickly to enact tighter restrictions in the state. Historically, it was one of the few times in history that Republican lawmakers defied the NRA by restricting weapons. In fact, before the new statues, Governor Scott was given an A+ by the NRA for his strong support of gun rights. However, he signed an omnibus bill in Florida that raised the minimum age to purchase a firearm

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in the state to 21 and extended the waiting period to three days. Other states across the country also passed gun control laws in 2018, which included bans on bump stocks and caps on magazine sizes, new minimum-age requirements, and expanded background checks.92

These sporadic bursts of heightened attention to gun control do not represent a new phenomenon; controlling firearms actually has a long history in the United States. For example, in 1927, the U.S. Congress passed the first gun control measure, which prohibited the sale of handguns to private individuals through the U.S. mail. Unfortunately, like many attempts that followed, this bill had virtually no effect, since manufacturers could still ship handguns to customers through private carriers.93

During Prohibition, Congress passed two more bills, the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, which were both intended to decrease gang-related violence and also to control the illegal distribution of alcohol. By heavily taxing guns frequently used by gangsters, such as sawed-off shotguns and machine guns, legislators sought to decrease the use of these weapons. Several decades later and in the wake of urban rioting and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Congress once again turned its attention to gun control by passing the Gun Control Act of 1968. According to James Jacobs, this act had at least five objectives:

To prohibit interstate firearms sales

To prohibit sales to an expanded list of “dangerous” categories of people, including people who had previously been convicted of a felony, minors under 18 years of age, and anyone “adjudicated as a mental defective”

To add other “dangerous devices” to the list of prohibited weapons

To prohibit the importation of so-called Saturday Night Specials

To prohibit the importation of surplus military weapons94

In the 1980s, Congress changed tacks and moved to increase the penalties for using a firearm during the commission of a crime instead of trying to limit sales and use of guns. The Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 imposed a mandatory minimum 15-year prison term on a convicted felon who had three previous convictions for robbery or burglary and who possessed or received a firearm.

This act was later amended several times to include sentencing enhancements (i.e., increased sentences on top of other sentences received) for those who used a gun and were convicted of violent offenses and drug offenses, those who used a gun loaded with armor-piercing ammunition during the commission of a violent crime, and those who transferred a firearm knowing that it would be used to commit a violent crime or for drug trafficking.95 Additionally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was authorized to grant licenses to dealers and manufacturers and to enforce the other requirements of this gun control legislation.

Legislation does not happen in a vacuum. Lobbying groups respond to virtually all proposed legislation, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) is no exception. In fact, the NRA is perhaps the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington, DC. Claiming that any

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legislation aimed at controlling the possession of guns by citizens infringed upon their rights, the NRA and its congressional backers passed the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1968 (FOPA). Among other things, this law prohibited the federal government from centralizing the records of firearm owners or firearm transactions and allowed federal firearm licensees to sell arms at temporary locations, such as gun shows.96 This led to a sharp increase in the number of gun shows across the country, and they are still not regulated by federal gun control legislation.

The next major gun control law that Congress passed was the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Bill) of 1993, which mandated criminal history background checks on persons applying to purchase firearms from federally licensed firearm dealers. This bill was fueled in large part by the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, which resulted in the wounding and paralysis of James Brady, President Reagan’s assistant. Among other things, the act established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and required a background check by the FBI or a state point of contact on all persons applying to receive firearms from a registered firearms dealer.

Theoretically, before anyone can obtain a gun through a dealer, they must wait five days after applying so this check can be completed. This waiting period and subsequent check are to make sure high-risk applicants are prevented from obtaining a firearm. Such high-risk groups, as detailed by the law, include fugitives from justice, those dishonorably discharged from the U.S. armed forces, those convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, those convicted in any court of domestic violence, those under restraining orders to protect intimate partners or children, those who have renounced U.S. citizenship, unlawful users of controlled substances or those addicted to controlled substances, and those adjudicated to be mentally defective or committed to a mental institution, to name a few.

However, recall the provision of the FOPA, which allows firearms dealers to sell guns at gun shows. Neither the Brady Bill nor any other gun control regulation currently applies to transactions conducted at gun shows or other sponsored events. Based on the number of gun sales stopped by the checks, many agree that it is a relatively useful tool to keep guns out of the hands of high-risk individuals. For example, since the inception of the Brady Bill, about 2% of all applications for firearm transfers have been rejected each year. While this may not seem like a lot of rejections, it translates into stopping about 1,228,000 high-risk individuals from obtaining a gun—at least through legal means. A felony conviction or indictment is typically the most common reason for rejection.97

In 1994, Congress again passed another gun control measure, the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). Assault weapons are difficult to define but are generally considered to be semiautomatic rifles that look similar to military weapons, such as AK-47s and Uzis. The AWB banned 19 such weapons. This was a largely symbolic measure because these types of weapons are rarely used in crimes and are functionally equivalent to all other semiautomatic long guns that are still legal.

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Based on public sentiment, many states have enacted their own form of gun control legislation. On average, the majority of Americans (55%), according to a recent Gallup poll, believe that the laws governing the sale of firearms should be stricter.98 However, a majority sentiment is not always the most powerful predictor of policy.

Photo 4.2 Soldier carrying an AR-15 weapon. While much of the gun control debate has focused on “military-style” weapons, these types of weapons are rarely used in crimes.

iStock.com/WilliamSherman

This brings us back to the NRA. As James Jacobs describes, “The NRA’s core message is that (1) gun control proposals are a smoke screen for confiscation, (2) the Second Amendment constitutes an absolute bar to gun controls, and (3) no gun control has ever, or will ever, work.”99 Consequently, after the passage of the Brady Bill and the AWB, the NRA poured millions of dollars into federal and state elections to remove politicians who had voted for their passage. Before the 2000 elections, the NRA spent nearly $20 million to support anti–gun-control candidates. It was a very successful campaign. The climate in the Congress regarding gun control legislation has changed dramatically, as can be seen by a number of actions taken—and, importantly, not taken. In September 2004, for example, the new Congress let the 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons expire, making the banned weapons once again legal to buy—although, as we noted earlier, this issue is largely symbolic.100 On April 17, 2013, the Senate rejected the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment in a 54–46 vote.101 Intended to curb gun violence, this bill would have expanded background checks for any advertised sale of a firearm and was supported by an overwhelming majority of the American public.

In the present era, we remain a deeply divided nation when it comes to firearms. Furthermore, the question of what specific form gun control should take is also deeply problematic and divisive. In 2018, for example, while 61% of Americans favored stricter laws covering purchases of firearms, only 28% favored a handgun ban, which differed significantly from the 60% that approved this measure in 1959, the year Gallup began surveying this topic.102

In the wake of some of the highly publicized shootings mentioned above, a number of states are considering or have passed legislation allowing firearms on college campuses. Currently, all 50 states allow citizens to carry concealed firearms if state requirements are met. These specific criteria vary from state to state. While many states allow colleges and universities to individually prohibit or allow concealed weapons on campus, eight states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin) have voted to allow concealed firearms on college campuses.103 After the Parkland shooting, a movement to arm teachers in K–12 schools (which has received legislative support in a number of states, most notably Florida) has also added to the debate.104 West Virginia and Idaho now allow concealed carry without training or permits, while Texas allows citizens to carry handguns in the open.

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While the rationale is that such a legislative move might deter potential shooters or allow those with concealed firearms to intervene and stop shooters by using their guns on them, such arguments are problematic. Interestingly enough, although law enforcement has traditionally been a bastion of support for gun rights, increasingly, they are opposing these legislative initiatives, arguing that it increases the risk of conflicts escalating into gun violence.105 Furthermore, in all likelihood, these laws will make their jobs more difficult when they are attempting to deal with campus shooting situations. How will the police know who the criminal shooter is and who the lawful citizens are that are merely trying to defend themselves and fellow students?

In addition to gun control legislation, there have also been several promising programs to reduce gun violence at the local level. One such program is the Boston Gun Project. This is the work of an interagency group that includes members of several organizations: the Boston Police Department, the Bureau of ATF, the Massachusetts Department of Parole, the Boston school police, and a research team from Harvard University. All program participants communicate with one another to share intelligence on a regular basis in order to try to meet the project’s goal of preventing violence in inner-city neighborhoods through heightened surveillance, rapid identification of violence and violent groups, and swift sanctions, such as arrest and conviction. The program assumes that general deterrence will work—that increasing the costs associated with gun violence will make young people less likely to use guns to solve conflicts. Although there are no formal evaluations of the long-term effects of the program, the fact that Boston’s youth homicide rates have fallen since the project’s inception is promising.106

Conclusions

In this chapter, we have explored several forms of violence that are often in the news. While each is carried out by different kinds of perpetrators for a variety of motivations, mass killing—whether serial, spree, or mass murder—continues to exert an oversized pull on our imagination and often dominates popular fears and perceptions about the nature of violence in our nation. Even though they represent only a fraction of all the violence carried out in this country, mass killings have a disproportionate role in shaping and influencing popular opinion, social activism, and legislation. As we have discussed, in an era of mass murder in schools, public venues, and the workplace, this is especially true in regard to the debates around the nature and origin of violence and of the role and control of firearms in modern America.

Key Terms

Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 126

Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) 127

Boston Gun Project 129

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Bill) of 1993 127

BTK killer 103

bump stock 100

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) 126

comfort killers 106

defensive gun use 124

Federal Firearms Act of 1938 126

Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1968 (FOPA) 127

Gun Control Act of 1968 126

gun control legislation 124

handgun homicides 116

hedonistic lust killers 106

homicidal triad 108

mass murder 110

militia 124

mission killers 107

multicide 102

National Firearms Act of 1934 126

National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) 127

National Rifle Association (NRA) 126

power/control killers 106

Second Amendment 124

self-protection argument 123

semiautomatic weapons 120

serial murder 104

spree murder 108

Also note that some of the sources provided are cross-listed in E-Reserve in case you hit a paywall in trying to link to the article from E-learning (D2L).

3) Finally, where does the policy "fit" within the parameters of favoring regulations on firearm availability and access versus allowing more firearm availability and access through policies advocating "defensive gun use" (DGU) & "self-protection" measures. For this last question, be sure to use pp. 120-124 in Alvarez and Bachman to help you frame your response, drawing on some of the broader cultural arguments or public debates about causes of U.S, gun violence. Note that if you did the interaction forum for the week, you should already have a good sense of what to say about this broad debate of policy perspectives.

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The increased firepower offered by semiautomatic weapons also plays a significant role in both the lethality of an incident and the number of victims. In fact, the production of handguns has increasingly moved away from revolvers to semiautomatic weapons, which can fire more rounds. These semiautomatic varieties now account for 80% of all handguns produced.68 Semiautomatic weapons allow offenders to more easily inflict multiple wounds, and obviously, the more wounds a victim sustains, the greater the likelihood of death. For example, a recent study that examined all threats with firearms in a large metropolitan area found that threats escalated to attacks in the same proportion, whether assailants were armed with semiautomatic pistols or with regular revolvers (about 68%), but semiautomatic attacks were more likely to result in death compared to regular revolvers.

Ammunition has also become more lethal. For example, certain bullets are designed to expand or mushroom after hitting the target. Others have hollowed-out tips that are filled with very soft lead that enlarges on impact, and still others are designed to tumble after they hit and can travel large distances within the body, bouncing off bones and slicing through organs, arteries and veins, and as much tissue as possible.

Unfortunately, all of this extreme firepower has not been made any more difficult to use. In fact, the triggers of most firearms are relatively easy to pull, requiring only a few pounds of pressure to fire. Aiming, of course, takes more effort. That is why people who are involved in gun altercations are more likely to be wounded than to die and why more people are actually missed than are wounded. Evidence suggests that only around one in six shooting victims die from their wounds. This is because most of us are relatively bad shots, but it is also due in part to the increased speed at which many shooting victims receive medical treatment and the greater effectiveness of that care.69 Even with the high proportion of missed shots and nonfatal wounds, however, these weapons substantially raise the likelihood of a lethal outcome. In short, the availability of guns in general and semiautomatic handguns in particular is inextricably linked to the dangerousness of the violence played out on our streets and in our homes. So how did the United States become such a gun-toting nation?

Guns, Culture, and Violence

Bumper stickers alerting people that “This Vehicle Is Protected by a Colt 45” or “You Can Have My Gun When You Pry It From My Cold Dead Fingers” are not something you would see on automobiles in the majority of industrialized nations, yet messages like this are not uncommon on the streets of the United States. Other images of our gun culture abound in media portrayals of our past and our present. Think of the movie Patriot, in which noble colonists with guns in hand stand against the British Redcoats, or 3:10 to Yuma and Tombstone, which portray the Wild West as a place where good guys engage in gunfights against desperados.

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Guns, Culture, and Violence

Many if not most Americans seem resigned to, or find comfort in, the notion that this violence is immutable, the product of a deeply embedded historical experience rooted in the frontier heritage. Frequent Indian wars and regular gun-battles presumably inured Americans to the necessity of violence.70

In short, we have enshrined and mythologized guns and the role they played in our past. What is the result of our fascination with firearms? Well, compared with other industrialized nations, we are the most armed. We have more guns per capita than any other nation in the world. According to a Gallup poll in 1993, about 51% of Americans reported having a gun in their homes. By 2008, 42% reported having a gun at home, and these numbers haven’t significantly changed since then, with 43% of respondents reporting a gun in the home in 2018.71 The average number of guns in a private household is now up to 4.4, which constitutes a significant increase over the last 25 years. If we averaged the number of guns privately owned in the United States across all Americans, the average would be 1.7 guns per person.72 Moreover, there has been an increase in the percentage of the sales of all handguns, which are usually not purchased for sport or hunting. This makes sense when we realize that the leading reason offered by gun owners for why they possess firearms is that they have acquired them for self-defense against criminals.73 While most gun owners cite multiple reasons for owning a gun, according to the Pew Research Center, 67% of gun owners say protection is a major reason why they possess a firearm.74 We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that handguns now account for more than half of all guns sold.75 This is significant since, as we pointed out earlier, a majority of all violent crimes committed with a firearm involve handguns.

How does the United States’ availability and ownership of guns compare with that of other nations? The primary source of gun ownership data comes from surveys collected by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. In 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, the surveys showed that with less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States has roughly 35% to 50% of the world’s civilian-owned guns.76 The United States ranks number one in terms of gun ownership of all industrialized nations and, on average, owns about 88 firearms for every 100 people compared to the majority of industrialized nations with fewer than 20 and often fewer than 10 firearms per 100 people (see Figure 4.6). In fact, England and Wales have very low rates of gun ownership, despite the fact that a provision similar to the United States’ Second Amendment is contained in the English Bill of Rights.77

As you will see in the following chapter, the most likely precipitating circumstance for murders and assaults is a conflict situation, such as an argument or fight. Clearly, if someone has a firearm at his disposal during such an altercation, the probability of harm and death is increased. But what does the empirical literature have to say about the relationship between guns and violence, especially in regard to the issue of self-protection? Do increases in gun availability actually lead to more violence? A great deal of research demonstrates that they do. For example, one study examined statistics of gun ownership and gun-related violence and found that increases in gun density did increase the rate of robberies with guns and the rate of robbery homicides.78 Another study examined the impact of legislation repealing comprehensive background checks and the need for purchase permits in Missouri and found a subsequent 16% rise in gun homicides, even after controlling for other possible causes such as poverty, crime, unemployment, policing policies, and incarceration.79 Multiple studies have also found that the presence of a gun in the house greatly increases the likelihood of people living in that home successfully attempting suicide, while other analysis has found that rather than deterring burglaries, higher gun ownership rates increase home burglary rates. The argument here is that guns are easily resold or pawned for high value.80 Not only do guns increase homicide and suicide risk generally in those households in which firearms are present, but it appears that females are especially vulnerable in such homes.81 In other words, women in households with firearms become murder victims at significantly higher rates than men. Not all accept the validity of this relationship, however. Some have argued that instead of increasing rates of violence, guns allow citizens to protect themselves against predatory criminals. As indicated above, U.S. gun owners are most likely to report that they own their weapons for protective purposes.

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Figure 4.6 Average Number of Guns per 100 Population by Nation

Source: Adapted from data from “Gun Homicides and Gun Ownership Listed by Country,” The Guardian.

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The self-protection argument suggests that when private citizens have weapons in their homes or are able to carry concealed weapons, they are less likely to be successfully targeted by criminals.83 Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, for example, have found that a number of people who own guns have used them in self-protective ways: About 1.1% of persons owning guns had used them in a defensive way during the year preceding an interview in 1993. When respondents were asked about the preceding five years, the estimate increased to 3.4%. Generalizing this to population figures indicates that Americans use guns for self-protection as often as 2.1 million times a year. While this may seem like a large number, given the fact that there are over 200 million guns in private ownership in the United States, this means that only about 1% of them are used for self-defense in any given year.84 On the other hand, other surveys have not found support for this finding. According to the NCVS, for example, there are only about 82,000 victimizations in which victims used a gun for self-protective purposes every year—about one-ninth of that reported by Kleck and Gertz.

Part of the discrepancy may relate to how these different surveys frame the question and how they define the legitimate uses of guns for self-defense purposes. What counts as a legal use of a firearm to protect oneself? Does flashing a gun during a confrontation count? Keep in mind that an underlying assumption of defensive gun use is that it is a good thing, that it actually deters crimes or prevents them from being completed. Yet in point of fact, one study that involved a panel of judges investigating gun victimization in comparison to defensive gun usage found that more than half of self-defense uses were illegal.85 Part of the differences may also involve a number of other methodological issues. It is possible, for example, that the social desirability effect played a role in inflating reported uses of guns for self-defense purposes. Since the most common reason for owning a handgun is for protection, it is quite possible that some may report using a gun for such purposes in order to justify their purchase and ownership of the firearm. Similarly, there may also be a bias toward exaggerating or magnifying an incident in order to appear more heroic.

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What Are We Doing About Guns?

Gun Control Legislation.

As with all assignments, be sure to indicate which sources you are using with full citations and page numbers to denote specific findings. Also, be sure to quote and directly cite all verbatim text drawn from a source (no "cutting and pasting" of source materials in your piece without correct attribution using quotes and page numbers). Use AMERICAN REFERENCES ONLY