Gun laws do not succeed due to the fact that they focus on the wrong things (Kruschke 17). Earl Kruschke analyzes this notion:.
Gun laws fail because they do not address the issue. The issue is not possession of firearms, but misuse of firearms. We cannot expect criminals to abide by gun laws when they have already shown a disregard to law and order by their criminal activity. The only people ever affected by gun laws are peaceful, law-abiding citizens, who never abuse their firearm right. (17).
If gun laws do not work now, why are government officials and other bigwigs spearheading the fight for more gun laws? What is even more in question is whether or not gun laws have been proven affective in the areas that they are utilized.
If proponents of gun control do wish to set in place stronger and stricter gun laws, shouldn't they first prove that they do indeed work? The latter has yet to happen. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) New Jersey set in place an extremely strict gun law in 1966 and 2 years later the murder rate was up 46% and their robbery rate almost doubled ("Myth No. 2" 1). Virginia Beach has allowed easy access to firearms for quite some time, now and they have one of the lowest murder rates in the country, 4.1 per 100,000 ("Myth No. 2" 1). Surely these figures can give the American citizens something to think about when pushing for gun control. If those statistics are not enough to sway public opinion, the NCPA also reports that "20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6 percent of the population - New York, Chicago, Detroit, .
and Washington D.C. - and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns" ("Myth .
No. 2" 2). Even with these figures out there, gun control is still considered by many as the right choice to decrease violence. As reported by the NCPA "In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures and its murder rate, then a low 2.
