PHIL 8
10/14/13
Should We Carry a Gun?
Personally, I would not be comfortable carrying a gun everywhere I go. I believe that it is reasonable to carry a gun in your car or home; but not inside the local grocery store, even though it’s more likely to be best effective there. It is to my understanding that people who carry a gun are more likely to look for a reason to use it accordingly, although, this article does raise a sound argument in defense to carrying a concealed weapon.
Ratnesar reflects on a study published in 1995 that shows guns were used defensively around two and a half million times a year and that only five percent of cases were the defenders harmed after they were known to be carrying a weapon. This brings up a solid point in the argument of self-defense, but what wasn’t taken into consideration was that the study did not account for the levels of poverty in selected areas of the states. For example: would it be more understandable to carry a gun walking around the wealthy city of Beverly Hills or in the middle of Skid Row? So the benefits of carrying a gun fluctuate on the basis of a person’s conscience not science. He does indeed back up his facts by contending “that after more relaxed concealed carry laws were enacted, murders fell an average of eight percent, rapes five percent, and aggravated assaults seven percent for those areas; while in the rest of the country the numbers for murders went up twenty-four percent, seventy-one percent on rape, and the assaults more than doubled.” In my opinion, the only thing that proves is that the offenders were just more aware of policies, so in consequence they were more timid to attempt; not that the people were defending themselves by pulling out a weapon during a heated confrontation. Which backs up the idea of people’s conscience is where the gun safety laws really come into effect. After the laws were in place for an extended period of time, crime kept dropping while it was rising everywhere...