Not surprisingly, the two sides approach the issue differently. The two different strategies for gun control involve "deterrence" (discouraging by instilling fear) and " interdiction" (legally forbidding the use of) Advocates of deterrence, most notably the Second Amendment Foundation and the NRA, recommend consistent enforcement of current laws and instituting tougher penalties to discourage individuals from using firearms in crimes. They maintain that interdiction will not have any effect on crime but will strip away the constitutional rights and privileges of law-abiding Americans by taking away their right to own guns.
On the other hands, advocates of interdiction, led by such organizations as Handgun Control, Inc, the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and the Violence Policy Center, believe that controlling citizens" access to firearms will reduce crime. Therefore, they favor restrictions on public gun ownership.
A ten year overview of the public's attitudes about the issues government ought to be addressing is presented by the U.S. Department of Justice in its annual publication called Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2002.In 1993 fewer that 0.5 percent of adults polled mentioned gun control spontaneously. In each year thereafter between 1 and 2 percent of the respondents mentioned gun control as an important issue. (Web 1).
Humphrey Taylor, Chairman of the Harris Poll, provides some insight into the meaning of the gun control numbers in an online essay dated May 17, 2000 .The essay accompanied the release of Harris Poll in which the question was asked: "What do you think are the two most important issues for the government to address?" Taylor noted:.
"Education (19 percent) and health care (16 percent) continue to come top of the list of issues mentioned spontaneously when people were asked to say which two issues are most important to address. The most interesting trend is that gun control was mentioned by 9 percent Between 1996 and the first half of 1999, only one or two percents mentioned it as an issue.
