During the last few years gun control has come into question and whether there should be more firearm restrictions or less. With shootings like Sandy Hook and Columbine many agree guns should be outright banned and withdrawn form public use. Even though this sounds easy enough to take all guns from civilians it won’t be easy. With black markets, gangs, and cartels owning a lot of weaponry illegally, more harm would come from taking guns away. Criminals do not care if it is illegal to do or own something, which is why they are criminals. Guns are not used for just home and body protection many are used for recreation like hunting and sport. With the decline in firearm usage wildlife population would increase rapidly.

In a study located at http://www.pewresearch.org/ about 32% of people who own firearms claim that the main reason they own guns are for hunting. Taking that into consideration 32% of people would not be able to hunt and even though many don’t rely on hunting for main food source this drop in hunters would cause an overgrowth in wildlife population. According to many websites like http://dnr.maryland.gov/ hunters are the main predator to deer and wild boar. This hits close to home with areas like White River having an increase in wild boar population because the boars will flatten huge areas of land leaving many native species nowhere to live and forage. Losing control to this population could mean an end to recreational hunting in certain areas. Many gun control activists are quoted saying you do not need a fully automatic rifle to hunt. While this is true, many states have banned fully automatic rifles from use whilst hunting so the main reason for owning a fully automatic rifle is for recreational or protection. The problem arises when they want to take all guns away including muzzleloaders and semi or pump shotguns.

Another reason people want less firearms in America is they believe there will be a decrease in gun violence. Some believe just the presence of guns will cause an increase in violence. This may seem like a believable statement but it is actually the other way around. Murder rate in Texas fell 50% faster than the national average in the year after enacting their concealed carry license. States that disallow conceal carry have a violent crime rate 11% higher than the national average. These statistics and many more were found on www.gunfacts.info.  As of 2013 all 50 states in America allowed conceal carry with Illinois being the last. Many believe concealed carry application requirements and background checks do not prevent dangerous people from acquiring weapons, as stated by concealedguns.procon.org under the “con” list. This site states 622 people were killed nationwide by individuals legally allowed to carry. Furthermore, conceal carriers in Texas were 82% higher than the national average. While the 622 deaths cannot be confirmed or denied the statement about Texas has been proven false. In actuality, concealed carriers are 5.3 times less likely to be arrested for violent offenses and 14 times less likely to be arrested for non-violent offenses.  This information also came from concealedguns.procon.org.

The final argument I’ve heard about gun control is how well the United Kingdom is doing with their restrictive gun control laws. If you do a quick search about gun violence in the UK you will find that they actually have much higher gang related gun activity than the US. Even though the newer weapons have been taken away, gangs have resorted to using antique firearms, homemade ammunition, and gunpowder or to an extreme, just a knife. After the 90’s gun ban in the United Kingdom, gun crime rates rose steadily until police enforcement cracked down heavily in the early 2000s.  Even after that gun activity was still a lot higher than that of America.
Ultimately, gun control should not get any more restrictive than it already is. Countries like the United Kingdom indicate how our outcome could be if guns became outlawed. Also, taking away the main predator, hunters, in North America we will still have to contend with the risk of wildlife population overgrowth. I do agree however if a person wishes to buy a fully automatic rifle there should be a background check and mental evaluation. This however does not cover hunting rifles or other firearms it should only cover fully automatic rifles.