Gun Control Is Necessary.

Let's Talk About Gun Control.

Aug 31, 2025

America has a unique issue with guns. With a high rate of gun ownership across the 50 states, this comes with a high rate of gun crime as well.

This is something often under discussed due to the “baked in” nature of guns with American culture, but often comes back into the discourse following a tragedy.

Given this, I thought I’d present a few arguments as to why I believe common sense gun laws to create standard of gun control is necessary. These would include but are not limited to:

Assault Weapons Ban(Similar To What We Have On The State Level In California or New York.)
Permit To Purchase
Universal Background Checks With All Loopholes Closed.
Extreme Risk & Red Flag Laws.
No Shoot First Laws.
Concealed Carry Permits And Mandatory Gun Training.

With that said, here are the arguments as to why these are a long overdue necessity.

The Empirical Argument.

Gun Deaths Per State vs Gun Law Strictness Per State. Image Credits: Safehome

In my opinion this makes for the strongest argument, because it is the most obvious. Gun laws work, we see in states with stricter gun laws that there are lower levels of gun violence.

We also see a similar association if we look at levels of gun ownership, where the higher the rate the higher the instances of gun violence as well. Long term studies coincide with this as well, data from 1981-2010 found for every 1% increase in gun ownership there was a .9% increase in gun deaths.

We also know having a gun in your possession doesn’t actually make you safer. Not only is the rate of justifiable homicides to criminal homicides nearly 1:30, but data strongly indicates you are four times more likely to be shot while in possession of a gun.

Also, if you have a chance to use that firearm to resist that likelihood goes up to over five times more likely. In fact, you are over two times as likely to be involved in gun violence just by having access to a gun. This applies to every person in the household of a gun owner.

There is also strong correlation between gun ownership and youth suicide, with a 10% increase in gun ownership being associated with a nearly 30% increase in the youth suicide.

Adopting California’s definition of assault weapons would include a ban on high capacity magazines, which numbers from 1984-2017 can strongly tie to a 33% reduction in mass shooting fatalities and a 48% reduction in mass shootings.

These type of weapons lead to 2.3 times more deaths and 22.3 times more casualties when used in multi-person shootings, showing their ability to up the totality of damage.

When looking at the data the answer is pretty clear, stronger gun laws will lead to less gun deaths.

The Logical Argument.

The logic behind it is simple. Most people would have to accept the premise that no guns whatsoever would lead to no gun violence. Obviously, as there would be no guns.

Not to say there would be no crime of other kinds, but then that becomes a proportionality argument. If we know crime will happen regardless, shouldn’t the argument then be to limit the damage it will cause?

This would still give credence to a gun ban.

So if we accept that no guns equals no gun violence, you could logically extrapolate from that then less guns would equal less gun crime. As the closer one part of a premise comes to its conclusion, the other must follow.

So then logically speaking, policy in which makes it harder to access guns would lead to less gun crime, which would limit the damage crime causes. Which most people would agree should be the goal absent the ability to fully prevent crime.

We won’t run back through the data from the first two sections, but lending from it we see that the logic plays out in reality. States in which enact policy that leads to lower gun ownership, see less gun crime.

The proof is in the pudding.

The Constitutional Argument.

Once all else fails and the statistical realities are made obvious, what most gun supporters fall back on is the constitutional argument. We’ve all heard it before, some form of “it’s my god given right by the second amendment.”

But what if I told you there's a constitutional argument for gun control as well?

I think to start it’s important to have the full text of the Second Amendment for everyone to read, so we are on the same page. It is as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

When reading this what most gun control proponents focus on is “well regulated militia” and what most gun rights advocates focus on is “shall not be infringed.”

I actually think the answer is in the middle, but let’s first discuss these.

The second amendment is worded this way for a very specific reason, the federalist wanted only to right the bill of rights to ensure the states protections against the federal government. Not to say which rights the people have.

You can actually read in the correspondence between founding fathers like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson that they did not want to have rights written down for the people as they felt our rights were “so countless that to write them down would be to limit them”

This is also a sentiment shared all throughout the federalist papers by the likes of Alexander Hamilton and others.

Thus, even if limited by the state, the second amendment is still being followed due to the state having the ability to regulate it. This has been reaffirmed time and time again by the Supreme Court, which has ruled the second amendment is not unlimited.

So the principle is set. Which also addresses the last four words that gun advocates love to focus on. If the state has the ability to regulate the right to bear arms to its people, then the second amendment is not being infringed.

This is where the answer actually lies in the middle.

The text says very clearly “keep and bear arms.” Subtle, but devastating to the gun advocate position of absolutism. As the word “all” is not used.

Thus even if 99 kinds of guns were banned, but people had the right to own one kind of gun, that right is not being infringed. This is something people intuitively agree with, as they would say most people should not own nukes. Or RPGs, active tanks, the list goes on.

All of these would fall under “arms” but most sensible people understand the need to keep them out of everyday civilians hands, so it’s just about finding the place where we draw this line.

I think I made the case pretty clearly that is on the other side of assault weapons, with strict regulations for the guns people are able to access.