The problem of gun control can affect every person living in America because firearms of all kind scan be accessible to anyone anywhere. Law abiding firearms owners can sometimes be hindered by gun control laws. In some states like NY, it is considered a crime to use a legally registered handgun even in self-defense. Because of fears of vigilantism, many states do not allow any concealed weapons at all. There will constantly be an issue to defend individual's right to bear arms because of the ambiguity of the 27 words comprising the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
During the time period when the Constitution was written, personal rifles and ammunition were used to create state militia in the absence of a formal military and this should be considered in its interpretation. The Amendment was an important statement for that time period because Great Britain wished to ban firearms to control the colonies. It is because of personally owned weapons used for communal purpose that resulted in American independence.
Although Modern America is currently very securely protected by five branches of military supplied by federal means, the appeal of privately owned firearms is not diminishing. It is counterproductive to focus only on the single issue of who is allowed to obtain or keep guns. Gun control is not working if it takes guns from law abiding people but allows criminals to obtain them. Strict gun control has worked in the United Kingdom to drastically reduce gun deaths but those same policies are not possible in the United States because of the strength of gun lobbyists and gun manufacturers.
Gun control laws do not affect illegally obtained or maintained firearms. Guns shows are held that allow private gun sellers to ignore all stipulations regarding waiting periods otherwise required by law Even without gun shows if a criminal really wants a gun, no amount of paperwork or background checks will prevent a gun from being in their possession. There is also contributing legal or criminal justice factors to the widespread use of guns during a crime. Owning or using an illegally obtained gun is not a punishable crime alone in most states.
So if a person was never charged with the crime of burglary (using a gun), they cannot be charged with having an illegal gun. So there is really very little deterrent from using a gun to threaten, intimidate or harm another person. Gun control as well as crime control can be politically manipulated as stated by Stenson.
Gottfried also found it was commonly psychologically easier to use a gun than use other weapons to kill. The user of any firearm maintains distance from a person and can maintain mental distance from humanizing the victim. Writer Caitlin Kelly describes the feeling of using a .22 handgun on page 31 of Blown Away: American Women and Guns as "The gun felt trim and compact, easy to lift, aim, and fire. It was a totally different experience from shooting a handgun or even a rifle-much quicker to fire and less emotionally engaging. Fun. Powerful. A potent combination."
It is easy to see the power gun users find appealing. It takes less physical exertion to squeeze a trigger than use other methods for violence so requires less thought. Using a bat, knife or other means requires close contact and it is harder to attack with a victim having the ability to fight back.
The criminal justice system in the US is resulting in overcrowded situations and still requires more jails to be built. It no longer seems to work the way the system was intended and psychology can explain why it stopped working. The criminal justice system in the United States works almost exclusively by the use of coercion. Behave this way, conform this way or suffer the consequences. Motivation for criminal acts can range from complex reactions to poverty to simple psychological reasons to exert control over their environment or simply to prove that the law can be disobeyed.
The physiological need to eat is more understandable than breaking the law just to break the law or committing a crime just because it was possible. Marty Sidman attempts to explain how the criminal justice system can never work effectively to deter crime. Punishments involving jail time simply becomes a stimuli to be avoided. This avoidance does not result in a future free of criminal activity but rather a future of the criminal discovering new ways to commit a crime or to avoid getting caught during or after a crime.
Psychology students spend time training a rat (or other animals) in a laboratory to perform respond to certain stimuli with a specific response to receive reinforcement. Any phenomenon that produces behavioral change is called a stimulus and the behavioral change is called a response. It is followed by reinforcements that encourage response. The reinforcement can be positive, such as food treats, or negative, such as the removal of a stimuli (like a light).
