Implementing Gun Control Law

Introduction

In the current situation, the problem of violent crimes is getting to be extremely important since the consequences of such crimes seem to be absolutely unacceptable for the contemporary democratic and humanistic society. However, regardless numerous efforts of legislators and criminologist their attempts to stop violent crimes turned to be not very successful. In this respect, many specialists within the USA widely discuss the implementation of gun control laws which are supposed to slow down dramatically the growth of violent crimes.

Moreover, legislation concerning gun control has been already implemented throughout different states of the country that has made the question of its effectiveness even more important than ever before because if gun control laws are really effective than it is worthy to implement them nation wide. On the other hand, if these laws produce little or no impact than it is necessary to thoroughly discuss whether they are worthy to implement at all.

The effectiveness of gun control laws

Speaking about the idea of implementation of gun control laws in the US, it is necessary to point out that the wide research and public discussion of its effectiveness started in 1970s when actually gun control legislation has started to spread in different states of the country. As a result, the situation nationwide turned to be quite contradictive: on the one hand, there were states that readily implemented gun control laws attempting to prevent the growth of violent crimes, while, on the other hand, there were 'conservative' states that strongly believed that it is a sacred right of any good American citizen to have a gun.( Kellermann, 541)

As a result, the effectiveness of gun control laws turned to be one of the central points in the discussions concerning pro and contra gun control laws. The Table 1 perfectly demonstrates the general trends in gun ownership and violent crimes from early 1970s to early 1990s. These statistical data indicates at the basic trend to the stable growth of private gun ownership. For instance, the number of privately owned firearms within the period from 1973 to 1990 increased by 73%, while the number of privately owned shotguns increased by 110%. In such a way the general rate of private gun ownership increased by 45%. In this respect, it is extremely important to emphasize the fact that in the same period of time the national homicide rate fell by nearly 10% (Kellermann, 542).

For instance, the City of Chicago' 1982 gun control ordinance was and still remains one of the most restrictive gun control measures in the whole country. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of this measure is quite doubtful. According to data of the Chicago Police Department, the number of violent crimes, especially murders, in the city ebbs and flows with little respect for gun control laws (Sloan 1988). To put it more precisely, the number of murders in the city started to fall before the passage of the city's 1982 gun control ordinance mentioned above. However, five years later the number of murders in ...