The debate for gun control has been unreasonably initiated. It is not that there is no reason why gun control is in debate, there are 32,000 deaths related to gun violence in The United States each year, and when you look at the United Kingdom where deaths from guns each year range to about 50 to 60. There definitely is reason for someone to want gun control, as having a more peaceful, and less violent world is what both republicans and democrats want, they both have different ideas of how to do it. The backlash from the democrats has been a little bit too much though, as they have lobbied for much more positions on gun control, this restricts second amendment rights granted to us through the bill of rights, and the idea of gun control is in a way, meaningless at its current time due to The United States of America.

First thing is first, let’s talk about one of the most discussed topics when it comes to gun control, individual rights. The right to bear arms in The United States’ constitution states that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, should not be infringed.” This means that in order to defend oneself against invading enemies, or even domestic enemies like when the southern states of America attempted to secede from the Union, an armed militia is necessary. The first troops to face the South were militia, but in reality, a militia could have never won this war, even if because they were inexperienced. Now there is an argument that guns take away life, and are a restriction of the liberty to life, but whilst talking about threats domestic or abroad, one should note guns are a natural deterrent. People in pro-gun rights often point to Switzerland for low gun violence, even though it has a larger gun per capita than the United States. The idea is that if everyone has guns, nobody will want to use them, because it is easier to kill many people who aren’t armed than it is to kill as many who are armed. But assuming that the Swiss are just nice people than don’t like killing each other, one should note that Fleet Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy Isoroku Yamamoto noted “You can not invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Lastly I will reference the Declaration of Independence that states,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. --- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms of which they are accustomed.”

While I never hope to see tyranny in the United States, the idea of people giving up their right to defend themselves is the easiest way to let governments that were meant to rule over the people, to subject the people.

If one really wants to go deeper in this idea, we could explore the idea that has passed around in recent times called “rape culture.” The idea is simply that rape is now part of the culture of America, that it is because poor parenting that rape is still prevalent in this culture. The idea is only partially true, as people can still become insane, and they aren’t able to rationally control themselves. In this way, guns could be restricted. Now the main debate is that because people are murderous and vicious, we should not be allowed to wield weapons of any significant power. While I would never support allowing people to carry around nukes, however, people can be killed with virtually anything. People often cite handguns as the type of weapon that kills the most people, and that would be right. Handguns kill something like three to five times as many people as all other guns combined, but where people are wrong is that they think that this is a reason to restrict it from the general population. Until now there have been about four arguments for gun restrictions; restrict the guns from everyone completely, restrict handguns and assault weapons from people, restrict mentally ill people from obtaining weapons, and no restrictions on weapons. Restricting guns from everyone and restricting handguns and assault rifles would not work because eliminating guns all together would just cause people to keep them secretly and create a black market like in prohibition because of how much citizens of The United States appreciate their guns. No gun restrictions wouldn’t work because it would make it too easy for people to get automatic weapons inside the country. For instance, Mexico has some of the most invasive gun laws in any country, yet their gun deaths are still relatively large, and ARs have been taken away in New York City, yet people still illegally have them inside the city, just without any record of them. There have been cases where most of these laws work, like how in the UK one can only have a rifle for hunting purposes, and it is not allowed to be anywhere else really, and they have a very low gun violence. The idea that I most closely support would be the same as restricting it from people who are insane, but would be targeted toward handgun users. Background checks, and psychoanalysis would be necessary to enforce this though, and many people who were insane would lose the right to defend themselves. Maybe changing the culture would help, and that is an effort worth trying, and everyone going to a therapist constantly could drastically reduce insanity, but I have virtually no way to influence the culture as it is. The thing that isn’t mentioned here is the amount of suicides in the 32,000 that die from gun violence each year, which is somewhere around 21,000 were suicides related to guns. That would be a giant reason for therapy, and one where therapy could be very effective.

Lastly, our unique position makes it a little bit hard for gun control to be effective. Crime is a very large issue in the US and is constantly associated with gun violence. In inner city Detroit you could read the news and just about every day see one or two people killed from gun violence. The idea I am proposing would be to actually legalize drugs. Legalizing drugs such as weed or cocaine, though as terrible as I think it would be to allow people access to drugs, especially hardcore drugs, could help a lot with inner city crime. The idea of drug-runners would be an idea of the past, thrown out like the idea of bootleggers from the 1920’s. Though drugs can be dangerous, gun violence is dangerous too, and taking out drugs from the equation would help reduce gun violence internationally, and could eliminate the cartel effectively. This would not only help Mexico, help Columbia, and most importantly, allow the government to effectively regulate the drugs so that you wouldn’t have something like cocaine laced with fentanyl again. People are going to have access to drugs either way, but this would HEAVILY reduce gang violence, taking out one of the largest reasons conflict happens like this. According to CNN, the government estimates gang violence results in two thousand homicides each year, and we could virtually reduce that to zero. Along with this, we should also make sure that our restrictions for handguns never are above the restrictions for the AR platforms, and other weapons like it, because people always want weapons conveniently for the lowest price, and when you make a handgun harder to obtain that an AR then people are going to go to the more powerful AR. One last thing we should do is to create laws governing the storage of guns and ammo, saying that they could not be stored in the same location in a house, because the amount of burglaries stopped by guns is relatively low, but this would cut down on school shootings and to children having access to guns. Also keep the laws we have now or let states determine their own gun laws, as this would be the best way for the United States to keep gun laws from being invasive, and in the case of states rights, it would allow the states that want more gun laws to have them while the states with less gun laws wouldn’t have those laws. The last thing I would suggest would be to require time training with a gun to reduce accidental gun deaths, and to make sure that we don’t raise restrictions on guns to high right now, as mafias, cartels, and gangs do exist right now, and the last thing we need is to create another market that all they would have to do is change their product while still using the same supply lines like the tunnels under the U.S. Mexico border to sell illegal guns to U.S. citizens, effectively destroying all the ideas and ways to manage gun violence I have produced in this article.

So, in conclusion, the best way to handle gun violence wouldn’t be to restrict guns at all, effectively eliminating that constitutional right from the people, (although that could theoretically eliminate firearms in America if it didn’t start a civil war or cause an increase in illegal weapons in the U.S.A.) but to keep the same laws, let states choose gun laws, and to reduce gang violence, increase the amount of therapists we see, increase time training with guns, and don’t let gun laws get any more invasive, as well as keeping them from throwing of the balance of the chain of what weapons are used most (to keep people safe). If all this were to be implemented correctly, both republicans and democrats could be happy, there would little argument, and with the success that was the legalization of marijuana in some states (a $3.4 billion industry and decreased crime, and marijuana’s effect might decrease gun and overall suicides (some veterans noted that this helped them with their PTSD) and would decrease crime and the absurd amount of money we spend jailing people for illegal drugs through taxes) this could be entirely plausible in a very short time. This could unify congress. If anyone in authority is reading this, please try to keep these ideas in mind when gun laws are discussed. There is more than one way to tie a rope.