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Gun Control
Fionna M. Kerkes
Eastern Wyoming College
Ethics in Practice
Rebecca Cornish
04/10/2024
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Gun Control
America is facing a series of issues relating to gun control. Many believe that placing more
restrictions on firearms would deter law-abiding citizens from carrying guns, while those who
break the law would still have the same access to guns as before. Some believe that the only way
to stop mass shootings and other gun-related crimes is to place greater restrictions on who can
have firearms. The problem has absolutely nothing to do with guns. As a society, everything
from adult movies to children’s shows has become more violent in the last decade. We are being
constantly bombarded with violence, so it’s no wonder that we are more violent as a society. We
cannot pin all gun-related crimes on the guns themselves. Someone can end a life just as readily
with a plastic Bic pen as they can with a pistol. If someone wants to kill, they will find a way.
And yet there are fewer restrictions about knives in public places, and there is no great debate
about knife control. After all, firearms are not sentient. Just like knives and pens, they don’t
suddenly jump off of the shelf and kill someone all on their own. The real problem here is the
intent to kill, not the weapon of choice.
Let’s use an example of a city with about the same population as all of Wyoming. In Detroit,
Michigan, you have a 1 in 49 chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime. (Scout, 2024) In
Michigan, several gun control laws have been passed, including an extreme risk law and a
concealed carry permit. (Everytown, 2023) In Wyoming, 1.4 out of every 1000 people are the
victim of a violent crime. (Carlsen, 2024) That’s a 0.0014% chance. Coincidentally, Wyoming
also has the laxest gun control laws in the entire country. This data goes to show that a
well-armed populace is a polite one. We cannot, however, ignore the other factors that come into
play here.
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Although some may argue otherwise, the largest determining factor in violent crime is
intelligence. If you are not intelligent enough to rationalize your actions and consider their
consequences before you do them, you are more likely to act out in fits of emotion, leading to
violence and therefore violent crime. However, the average I.Q. in Michigan is 99.6 and is only a
few percent higher at 101.7 in Wyoming. (World Population Review, 2024) These figures aren’t
that different, so why the massive gap in violent crime? The difference is in the intentions.
Wyoming has an incarcerated population of 4,400 people, including everything from prison to
juvenile detention. (Initiative, 2024) Michigan has roughly 53,000 people who are incarcerated.
(Initiative, 2024) Again, the populations of Detroit and Wyoming aren’t all that different.
From a Consequentialist standpoint, gun control is difficult to condemn or support. The
consequence of gun control, as we visited earlier, is a higher crime rate. Therefore, gun control is
wrong. However, according to Consequentialism, shooting or injuring someone is fundamentally
wrong as well. This creates a paradox. If one cannot use weapons, it is assumed that one cannot
commit crimes. (Guns are bad.) However, people have been killing each other since long before
guns were invented. Therefore people need weapons to defend themselves. (Guns are good.) But
having weapons is wrong because of the consequences that come from killing. (Guns are bad)
This kind of back-and-forth thinking leads to more confusion than solution, and gun control is
intentionally analyzed this way to confuse the American populace. Instead, I will analyze this
problem from the most logical ethical theory. From a Utilitarian perspective, we have to look
past the idea of guns being objectively bad. Just like any other weapon, a gun does damage to
and kills people. Guns and gun control are not the biggest issue. As a Utilitarian, I would
analyze why Americans are becoming more violent. I look at the media promoting violence at
every opportunity. I look at world government bankers creating economic instabilities, making
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Americans feel dissatisfied and afraid. I look at the World Economic Forum, which is deciding
what gender terms are considered hate speech instead of addressing problems like violent crime.
And from all of these problems, I as a Utilitarian believe that the populace very well ought to be
armed. We must also address the Utilitarian idea that breaking promises is wrong. The
Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. Not the right to bear arms with a permit and a
background check, just the right to bear arms. It also guarantees the right to a well-regulated and
well-armed militia. By definition, a militia is made up of the people and is not an army. By
regulating guns and other forms of self-defense, the government is breaking its oldest,
fundamental promise to its people.
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References
Carlsen, J. (2024, March 21). Wyoming’s safest cities of 2024. SafeWise.
[Link]
me%20rates&text=The%20collective%20violent%20crime%20rate,down%20from%2011.
8%20last%20year.
Everytown. (2023, December 8). Michigan. Everytown Research & Policy.
[Link]
Initiative, P. P. (n.d.). Wyoming profile. Wyoming profile | Prison Policy Initiative.
[Link]
Milano, V. (2023, March 6). FBI releases 2021 Crime Statistics. Homeland Security
Digital Library. [Link]
Scout, N. (n.d.). Detroit, MI crime rates. NeighborhoodScout.
[Link]
World Population Review. (n.d.). Average IQ by state 2024.
[Link]