With talk about recent shootings and gun violence such as the ones in Allen Texas, Cleveland Texas, and Henryetta Oklahoma there has been a lot of talk of gun control. However, most people advocating for gun control don’t appear to know what they are talking about, as they talk about implementing laws that already exist or outright want to ban private ownership of firearms in the U.S. altogether. Gun control should absolutely be implemented, but it shouldn’t be implemented in the way the many anti-gun activists want it to be, not to mention that banning guns entirely is a terrible idea. 

One of the main arguments used by these activists is that we should have background checks, but we already have background checks. The Brady Act, for example, which was put in effect in 1994, requires background checks on buyers of firearms from a federal official. 

Additionally, because of the National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS) checks, which started in 1998, background checks are done on the buyer of any firearm transfer with a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL). There is, however, a rather large problem with that. Gun dealers that aren’t federally licensed aren’t required to do background checks, so many of them just don’t do them. This is obviously an issue which could be resolved by making the selling of firearms required through an FFL, which is something California has already done.

Gun control activists love saying that we need “red flag laws.” And we absolutely do; however, despite how it sounds, we are already implementing them. Illinois has a red flag law and so do 19 other states, and there are 13 where it’s proposed, with the exception of Oklahoma and its anti-red flag laws.

An excerpt from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) firearm laws says: “No, a license is not required to make a firearm solely for personal use. However, a license is required to manufacture firearms for sale or distribution. The law prohibits a person from assembling a non–sporting semiautomatic rifle or shotgun from 10 or more imported parts, as well as firearms that cannot be detected by metal detectors or x–ray machines. In addition, the making of a National Firearms Act (NFA) firearm requires a tax payment and advance approval by ATF.”

As you can see, you can in fact make a firearm without a license for personal use however under the NFA, machine guns, short barrel rifles and sawed-off shotguns all must be registered and are generally very highly controlled.

The Ar-15 is also commonly blamed for America’s gun problems. One of the reasons for that is the misconception that “Ar” stands for “assault rifle,” but it doesn’t. It stands for ArmaLite, the company that first designed the Ar-15 way back in 1956. An assault rifle is defined by the United States Army as: “A select-fire rifle chambered in an intermediate power cartridge.” The Ar-15 is not select fire. Many people believe it’s super easy to make the Ar-15 select fire and they are right it is easy to make the military model select fire. But the general populace has access to the civilian variation which has changes made to make it harder to convert it to selective fire.

The Ar-15 also can’t possibly be a main cause of shootings because pistols are used in 77% of U.S. shootings. However, the Ar-15 is a very, very accurate weapon making it the most effective civilian firearm and the easiest thing to blame for gun problems. 

Oh wait, the Ar-15 isn’t the most effective civilian firearm. The title actually belongs to SIG Sauer’s MCX-SPEAR; it hits twice as hard as the Ar-15, and is significantly newer, as it’s the consumer variant of the XM7 which is the U.S. Army’s next-generation rifle that was put into service last year. So maybe instead of banning the Ar-15, we should ban the MCX-SPEAR. The blame will shift from firearm to firearm based on what people don’t like, and since nobody actively dislikes the MCX-SPEAR, it won’t stir up a fuss, despite it being significantly more effective than the Ar-15.

Easily the most radical proposition that keeps popping up is the idea of banning all guns in the country. The right to bear arms is one of our main freedoms that we can flex on other countries. Keeping a well-armed militia led us through the Revolution and the War of 1812. 

The argument for banning guns is usually supported by death rate statistics. The United States had 48,000 gun deaths in 2020. 98,000 people died from drug overdose in 2021, which is more than twice the gun deaths, yet we don’t have mass movements to crack down on drugs or ban all drugs. The War on Drugs was decades long, and we couldn’t get rid of them. It’s the same thing with guns. People love them, some people need them and because there are so many in circulation, many people want to keep them at all costs. Therefore, we can’t actually get rid of guns. 

Additionally, more than half of gun deaths aren’t even murder; it’s suicide. Suicide also happens to be the 10th biggest cause of death in the country taking 44,000 lives a year, yet there’s this big support for gun control and gun outlawing and very little support for better and cheaper mental health services. If you want to ban guns, then do you volunteer to go door to door and try to take people’s firearms?

There are some laws that only exist in one state that are perfect at achieving a middle ground where it isn’t stomping out our rights and at the same time cuts down on murders. Maryland signed a law in 1988 that banned the selling of some cheap pistols, which cut down on gun deaths statewide as pistols are the main source of gun violence. In 1993, Virginia limited handgun sales to one per month, which cut down on gun deaths significantly not just in Virginia, but all across New England.

Gun control is needed, however not to as large of an extent. Red flag laws already exist in the majority of states. Background checks are already in place. We need to focus on other aspects of gun control. And stop blaming the Ar-15 for things it didn’t do.