How to gain their trust and respect of James: by maintaining a confident tone that also does not presents reasons with a degrading or conceited tone. I will also appeal to his emotions and feelings using reason a personable character.
My Claim: Though guns can cause harm and death to innocent people, gun control laws are not necessary to keep the United States safe. Furthermore, people have the right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to bear arms, defend themselves, and use guns for their hobbies.
Reasons:
1.) To uphold law: The Second Amendment states that all citizens of the United States have the right to keep and bear arms.
a. Evidence = The Second Amendment provides that, "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." (“Bearing arms (again)”)
2.) Not to prevent deaths: Other weapons can be used to kill people, so gun control laws would not have an effect on violent deaths.
a. Evidence = In Washington, D.C. when guns were banned, “D.C.'s violent crime rate went up, not down, after the ban” (John R. Lott)
i. “in the five years before Washington's ban in 1976, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000. In the five years after it went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35.” (John R. Lott)
b. Evidence = In Chicago and its neighboring suburbs, “Chicago's murder rate fell from 27 to 22 per 100,000 in the five years before the law and then rose slightly to 23. The change is even more dramatic when compared to five neighboring Illinois counties: Chicago's murder rate fell from being 8.1 times greater than its neighbors in 1977 to 5.5 times in 1982, and then went way up to 12 times greater in 1987.” (John R. Lott)
c. Evidence = “Children 14 to 15 years of age are 14.5 times more likely to die from automobile injuries, 5 times more likely to die from drowning or fire and burns, and 3 times more likely to die from bicycle accidents than they are to die from gun accidents.” (“Public Health and Gun Control”)
d. More guns does not mean more murder or suicide
i. Evidence = “If this were true, murder might well increase where people have ready access to firearms, but the available data provides no such correlation. Nations and areas with more guns per capita do not have higher murder rates than those with fewer guns per capita.” (Kates and Mauser)
ii. Evidence = “suicide rates were no worse in nations with many firearms than in those where firearms were far less widespread” (Kates and Mauser)
Percentages of: Suicide; Suicide with gun; Murder; Murder with gun, and number of guns per 100,000 people
Austria N/A N/A 2.14 0.53 41.02
Belarus 27.26 N/A 9.86 N/A 16.5
Czech Rep. 9.88 1.01 2.80 0.92 27.58
Estonia 39.99 3.63 22.11 6.20 28.56
Finland 27.28 5.78 3.25 0.87 411.20
Germany 15.80 1.23 1.81 0.21 122.56
Greece 3.54 1.30 1.33 0.55 77.00
Hungary 33.34 0.88 4.07 0.47 15.54
Moldova N/A N/A 17.06 0.63 6.61
Poland 14.23 0.16 2.61 0.27 5.30
Romania N/A N/A 4.32 0.12 2.97
Slovakia 13.24 0.58 2.38 0.36 31.91
Spain 5.92 N/A 1.58 0.19 64.69
Sweden 15.65 1.95 1.35 0.31 246.65 (Kates and Mauser)
e. Evidence = countries with gun control laws such as Japan have higher suicide rates with guns than the United States (“Public Health and Gun Control”)
f. Evidence = very few ordinary citizens will ever murder someone using a gun. “almost all murderers are extremely aberrant individuals with life histories of violence, psychopathology, substance abuse, and other dangerous behaviors. ‘The vast majority of persons involved in life-threatening violence have a long criminal record with many prior contacts with the justice system.’ ‘Thus homicide--[whether] of stranger or [of] someone known to the offender--is usually part of a pattern of violence, engaged in by people who are known ... as violence prone.’” (Kates and Mauser)
g. Evidence = “There is a compound assertion that (a) guns are uniquely available in the United States compared with other modern developed nations, which is why (b) the United States has by far the highest murder rate. Though these assertions have been endlessly repeated, statement (b) is, in fact, false and statement (a) is substantially so.” (Kates and Mauser)
3.) For protection: People should be able to protect themselves
a. Evidence = personal account of Alan Contreras, a gun owner
i. His reasons for owning a gun: self-defense from criminals and dangerous animals
ii. “Surely each person has the right to decide whether to kill or die” (In Defense of Self-Defense)
iii. “Some people would not shoot another person in self-defense. I would.”
iv. “the police can't be everywhere,” and “there are few police officers in rural America”
4.) For leisure: many people enjoy hunting, skeet shooting, and other hobbies that involve guns which do not at all harm the lives of people.
a. Evidence = 12.5 million hunting licenses were sold in 2006 (Rocky Barker)
Arrangement of Reasons: 1, 4, 3, 2
Resources: My resources will include periodicals, websites, books, and any other reliable sources I find.
- “Gun Control.” GunCite. 11 Nov. 2007
- Faria, Miguel A. Public Health and Gun Control: A Review. Part I: The Benefits of Firearms. 12 April 2001
- Becker, Joseph D. "Bearing arms (again)." New Jersey Law Journal (July 6, 2007)
- Contreras, Alan. "In Defense of Self-Defense." The Chronicle of Higher Education 53.41 (June 15, 2007)
- Kates, Don B., and Gary Mauser. "Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide? A review of international and some domestic evidence." Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 30.2 (Spring 2007): 649(46).
- Lott, John R. “D.C.’s flawed reasoning; The city’s handgun ban doesn’t save lives.” The Washington Times (Sept. 7, 2007)
- Barker, Rocky. “Modern living culls the herd of American hunters.” IdahoStatesman.com: Idaho’s #1 Website for News and Information. 23 Oct 2007. Voices.IdahoStatesman.com. 19 Nov. 2007.
MAIN BRIEF:
In the United States, gun control laws are unnecessary, and the positive aspects of not having gun control laws are too often overlooked. Though guns can cause harm and death to innocent people, gun control laws are not imperative to keep the United States safe. Furthermore, people have the right, as stated in the Second Amendment, to bear arms, defend themselves, and use guns for their hobbies. My reasons against gun control include the Second Amendment, self protection, and leisure. Using convincing evidence, I will also ensure that gun control laws should not be made to prevent deaths. Instead, I will promote increased safety with gun use. I will also use my advocacy for gun safety, in particular, gun locks, to persuade my audience, James that gun control laws are unnecessary. I will, however, acknowledge the many deaths correlated to guns. But, I will provide strong evidence and reasons that will outweigh this positive aspect of gun control to show that gun control laws are not necessary for the United States.
