Britain has the most severe gun control laws in the world. Handguns or pistols are banned for civilians, even for sports purposes. You must get a certificate from the police to own a shotgun or a rifle for hunting , and the certificates aren't easy to get. So, is gun control a good thing or a bad thing? Let's look at some of the common arguments for and against the right to own a gun.
Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.
Read the article and then do a comprehension exercise. Finally, do some writing yourself and see texts written by other readers.
You can also listen to this article:
Download mp3 file or listen on your PC
To download, right-click on the link above, choose 'Save target as', and select where you want to save the file. If you're a using a Mac, simply double-click on the link and use the on-screen window to select the file's destination.
If you want to listen on your PC, just left click and the file will play in your default player. For Mac users, click the link.
(Print article and do activity on paper) (pdf file - 89 KB)
Guns prevent crime. Criminals will think twice before robbing the house of someone with a gun. The police can't keep order so people need guns to protect themselves. If you take away their guns, innocent people will suffer because they won't be able to defend themselves.
If guns prevent crime then why doesn't the USA have the lowest crime rate in the world? Guns don't protect you. Statistics show that you are more likely to be shot if you have a gun in the house. And the person who gets shot is more likely to be the householder than the intruder.
People always talk about gun control after massacres like Hungerford or a school killing like Columbine in the USA. The people who do these things are mentally ill. You can't legislate against what these people might do. The actions of one 'madman' shouldn't be used to make everyone else criminals too.
In the majority of these 'massacre' killings, the murderer got the guns either from his or her own home or from the home of a member of the family. And the guns were usually legal. If the guns weren't available it wouldn't have happened. It's as simple as that.
Most people who have guns are responsible law abiding citizens. They use them to hunt or for sport. They store their guns carefully and know how to use them. They aren't a danger to anyone else.
Every year, thousands of children die in accidents involving guns in their own homes. Why not use the new generation of 'smart' guns that can only be used by the owner, through, for example, fingerprint recognition? The technology is available, but gun makers and gun owners don't want to use it.
A gun is only a tool. It doesn't kill by itself. People kill, not guns. Are you going to ban knives next?
Guns and knives are not the same. You can kill many more people with a gun than a knife. And with a gun, the killing is depersonalised. You can kill people from a distance without seeing the consequences.
Thousands of people are killed every year by cars, but we don't ban cars.
Cars weren't invented to kill people. Guns were.
There are too many gun laws already which make life difficult for law-abiding gun owners. We need more severe penalties for criminals who use guns, not restrictions on normal people. Give the criminals longer prison sentences and leave the rest of us alone.
Tougher penalties won't stop serious criminals from using guns. A cocaine dealer already faces a long prison sentence if he is caught. We need to stop them getting hold of the guns in the first place. We need to break down the gun-owning culture.
People have the right to carry guns. In many countries, (the USA for example) it's a right that goes back hundreds of years. Why should the government interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens?
The world was a different place hundreds of years ago. Machine guns didn't exist for a start. And obviously, if the rights of an individual makes life dangerous for other people, then that right should be taken away.
If gun control is such a good thing, why have British gun crime figures increased and not decreased?
Gun crime is in the news at the moment, but it's still a very small percentage of the total of recorded crimes in Britain, less than half a per cent. And most of this crime is connected with members of criminal groups, such as drug gangs. It's a problem, but it certainly isn't caused by gun control.
So what do you think? Should we blame rap music? Or the violence on TV and in the cinema? Or the 'gang culture' in many inner cities? Is gun control the answer? Send us your opinions.
Anonymous writes “I'm from Argentina, and here there are a lot of crimes with guns. Most of them are committed by poor people who are robbing. In most cases, these people take drugs so they might kill a person after robbing him, even though the victim doesn’t resist. Also there are many cases of children who shot a member of their families or innocent victims who are injured because they are in the middle of a shootout. Besides, the police are a danger for the citizens. They don’t have responsibility using guns. Some of them have killed poor people because they thought those people were robbers so they shot and then they realized their mistake. To not be accused, they put guns near to the bodies to simulate a shootout.”
top
David Kummerfeldt writes “Guns, on their own, do not do the killing. It is either criminals or carelessness. No matter where you go in the world, or what time in history, if there are humans involved you will find these two things. If a bad guy wants a gun, he will have it, and if there is no way to get guns legally, only the bad guys will have guns. So what happens when everyone has the right to have a gun? Smart, responsible people that feel the need to own a weapon will buy one, practice with it at the range so they are proficient, and store it safely with the weapon locked up, separately from the ammunition, out of reach of their children. Gun accidents happen when people get lazy or stupid. If you shoot yourself with you own weapon, you deserve a Darwin award. If you store your gun where your kids can find it, you deserve to be shot yourself. Owning a firearm may be a right, but with that right comes a responsibility. If you want to take on the responsibility of owning a fire arm for protection or sport, it is your job to know how to use it, and feel comfortable with it, and when it isn’t in your hand it needs to be stored properly so that it isn’t a hazard to yourself or others.”
top
Phan Thi Nam Mai writes “We can't deny that there is a direct connection between society's black sheep and gun crimes. Rap music, violent movies, or gangs are representatives of a popular culture among modern youth. It's true that those people from within this culture, who have access to guns, have utilised this weapon to impose their violent strength and threaten the safety of our society. However, we can't blame this culture for being the one and only cause of gun crimes. In fact, this culture is rather a reflection of how the nature of society has changed. We are no longer safe within our own houses. It is not because there is somebody who sings rap music, or somebody who watches violent movies, or even is a member of a gang. It is literally because somebody has a gun in his hand! Who is this somebody and why should or shouldn't he have a gun in the first place?
It has been argued that guns are a means of deterrence against criminals. So, the question is how much guns will help to defend yourself and your family. It doesn't matter if you have a gun. It matters if you know how to operate it effectively. How many people among us can operate a gun better than expert criminals? In most cases, when either party or both get hold of a gun, chances are it will cause an immense threat or aggression to the other party. This will make both parties do dangerous actions which eventually result in deaths or severe injuries.
On the other hand there is the motto "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." No weapon ever functions without an order from a man. Nevertheless, between a man with a knife and a man with a gun, who is more dangerous? It takes a man with a gun less than 20 seconds to kill 20 people with 20 shots. How long would it take a man with a knife to perform this massacre? In the same position in the human body, an injury caused by a bullet is many times more severe than one caused by a knife. When it comes to the cause, we can blame the man, not the gun; but when it comes to the outcome, we blame the gun, not the man.
Under gun control acts in some states, people expect that this will follow the saying "with the right comes the responsibility". It is not that simple to make all gun-owners responsible citizens. Can we sell a man a gun and expect him to make good use of it? Of course we cannot blame everybody because of some individuals. However, we also cannot grant some individuals' needs at the cost of the whole community's safety. We have to admit the fact that we live in a inter-personal community and somehow, we are responsible for somebody else's action. If there is still somebody holding a pistol in our neighbourhood, we are still unsafe.
The nature of crime is much more complicated that we can imagine. However, what we can do is to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries caused by guns. It is time to take the danger of a gun, only by itself, into utmost consideration. We can't afford to lose any more lives just because some silly weapons are being used. Hence, it's time we arrived at the prohibition of private ownership of guns and other weapons under the same category. Illegal trade or use of guns should be strictly punished by the law. Governments should create trust among the state's citizens in its own defence force to protect them.”
top
Thusantha Herath writes “Guns were invented for the purpose of killing. Killing cannot be accepted in modern civil society. Therefore, my opinion is that guns should be banned for the public in order to control the crime rate.
One can argue that making use of guns legally can prevent crimes. But why do you need guns for self-defence if guns are no longer available in society? More strict laws can be imposed in order to prevent illegal gun making & transportation. Continuously developing new technologies can be used to make more precise instruments to locate these illegal items. For example scanning of an area for guns using a special machine may be possible in the future.”
Wikipedia: Arms control
United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
CND: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Institute for Defence and Disarmament Studies
The British Council is not responsible for the content of external websites.
| 
