Gun crime and gun control legislation is one of the most controversial and consistently debated issues in contemporary American politics. It is one which concerns each individual citizen of the country and also one which seems to cut to the heart of what it means to be an American citizen. To talk about gun control and increasing the security of people from gun-related violence is also to talk about the sovereignty of the individual and conceptions of personal and legal freedom which are key to the American understanding of what it means to live in a functioning democracy. This paper is concerned with these issues, although it cannot go into depth with regard to all of them. It will, however, consider one argument related to gun crime and security: that women should learn about guns in order to increase security. Such an argument relies on an idea that knowledge and distribution of guns will lead to an increase in security. This is fundamentally fallacious argument as a wider distribution of guns does not lead to freedom from guns, quite the opposite. This paper will argue this thesis by first of all summarizing the counter argument and then moving to consider existing facts and arguments about the most effective way to control gun violence and to increase general security.
The argument for increased learning about and possession of guns in made by Robert DeWitt. DeWitt begins by telling the story of a friend of his sister who was able to protect herself from an abusive boyfriend because her own friend had access to a pump action shot gun. DeWitt argues that the fact of this access enabled her to intimidate the abuser in retreating from their room and then goes onto argue that, as a result of this active intimidation it is possible to argue that all women should have knowledge about where they can obtain guns as this would lead to them having access to an increase in security and therefore being able to live safer and better lives. DeWitt summarizes this argument with the statement that having access to a gun club and to weapon itself, provided that this access is gained under the influence and supervision of someone has experience in the area is a ‘safe and easy way for women to gain measure of security that they need in today’s world’ (2011).
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"Women Should Learn About Guns for Security".
It is certainly the case that the average woman undergoes considerably more threats to her security than the average man, and it is certainly the case that the she therefore requires more security in her life and that she should be free to attain this security in ways are legal and which are mediated by her own personal choices and desires. However, DeWitt’s argument relies on a clear idea which is irresponsible and simply untrue. This is the idea that access to guns increases general levels of security.
It has been shown several times that access to fire arms, no matter how many times this access is mediated, does not lead to an increase in general levels of security but rather it leads to an increase in the general level of gun crime and of gun related deaths. The writer of one such study notes, after having consulted recent statistics related to gun related deaths that ‘guns increase the likelihood that any particular dispute will result in an individual’s death and increases in gun ownership will serve to increase the rate of homicides’ (Duggan, 2001 1090).
While a possessing access to a fire-arm may serve to aid someone in one particular situation, and especially the situation which is described, a generalized access to fire-arms is much more likely to produce situations in which people have new gun related threats to their security. This would introduce an entirely new set of problems for individuals who were previously living in a place which had limited access to guns. Indeed, the only way in which such new problems could be reasonably solved would be for each individual who does not have access to a gun to gain it and this would lead a generalized state of affairs in which gun violence was much more likely.
Although DeWitt claims that it is possible for gun ownership to be conducted responsibly, and claims that such a responsibility can be actively practised given the right circumstances, his language and references belie a machismo which clearly interested in the power and charisma which gun ownership can be seen to bring to an individual. For example, he describes how his sister ‘racked the pump action, throwing a shell into the magazine,’ and later he asks the rhetorical question; ‘What action movie would be complete without the sound of a pump action shotgun’s action throwing a shell from the magazine into the firing chamber’ (2011). Through using this language, DeWitt shows a clear prejudice for the perceived glamour of gun ownership and violence. While this may be seen to be relatively harmless, it is nonetheless the case that studies show that the glamorisation of violence does lead to an increase in violent crime, especially with regard to the use of guns as powerful and as linked to action movies as a pump action shot gun. One study notes this and states that; ‘Gun related deaths are simply higher amongst demographics who are most frequently exposed to violent media, and it is especially the case that this violence justified along the lines of the idea of the singular hero fighting for either self-defence of justice as seen in action and vigilante movies (Levitt, 1998 1160). Indeed, as the case of Trayvon Martin showed in 2013, a belief in the an individual’s right to self-defence, regardless of the perceived threat level can, when combined with a generalized state of gun ownership, have violent and tragic consequences. Although DeWitt does not argue for vigilantism, his argument nonetheless fits its model and this is a model which is categorically proven to decrease security and not to increase it.
In conclusion, this paper has argued that the argument that women should have access to guns in order increase security is fundamentally wrong. It has argued this because guns do not increase security and because the author of the argument can be shown to tap directly into stereotypes which been manifestly proven to lead to an increase in gun deaths and to provide no meaningful general security.
- DeWitt, Robert. “Women Should Learn About Guns for Security.” Tuscaloosa News. April 6, 2011. Web. 8 September 2014.
- Duggan, Mark. “More Guns, More Crime.” 109.4 (2001) : 1086-1114. Print.
- Levitt, Scott D. (1998) “Juvenile Crime and Punishment.” Journal of Political Economy. 106.6 (1998) 1155-1170. Print.
