Outline of Speech

Sands, Stephen
Com Studies 21

Topic: Gun Control should be abolished in its current form

I.

Introduction

A. Attention Getter
1. Anecdote: When my best friend was about 16 years old, his house was broken into by a
gang of criminals while he was home. He was unable to defend himself, was taken captive and
beat while the criminals robbed his house and debated whether or not to kill him.
2. In recent years, mass shootings and murders committed with firearms have inspired the
question how do we reduce violent crimes in the United States? The answer to this, so far, has
been legislation at the state and national level in an attempt to curb gun violence.
B.
1. Thesis: Gun control involving restrictions on what guns can be purchased should be
abolished.

II.

Body

1. Murder and violent crime rates increase after strict gun control laws are enacted.
a.
We can look to other countries who have passed strict gun control laws to see if they
helped alleviate violent crime.
b.
Gun bans are created to reduce murder rates, so why havent they? In all of these European
countries and the U.S., the crime rates dont change at best and increase at worst.
c. If the goal of these laws are to save lives, theyre not doing an effective job.
d. Additionally, a study published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy shows that
the murder rate in the nine European countries with the lowest gun ownership rates are three
times higher than murder rates in the nine European countries with the highest gun ownership
rates.

(Transition: We can see that in countries where a gun ban was instated, homicide rates were not
lowered, but what about self-defense? How many lives are saved each year by people using
firearms to scare off criminals?)

2.

Peoples lives are actually saved more than taken by firearms.

a.
According to a nationwide survey of almost 5000 households, during the last 5 years at
least 0.5% of households gun for defense in a situation where someone "almost certainly would
have been killed" if they "had not used a gun for protection." (Kleck and Gertz)
b.
If we apply the results of this study to the population of the U.S., we average about 162
thousand lives saved per year by law abiding citizens using firearms for self-defense.
c.
In comparison to the number of murders in the U.S. per year, 14,748 in 2010, the latest
available statistic, the number of Defensive Gun Uses per year exceeds the murder rate by a
factor of more than 10

(Transition: We can see from this that firearms are extremely effective in preventing and
deterring violent crime. Additionally, gun control laws are often poorly written by legislators
whose motives are based more on fear than actual reasoning)
3. Current laws that restrict gun ownership do nothing to solve gun violence

a. Current laws restrict gun ownership based on features shared with military style rifles
such as pistol grips, flash suppressors and collapsible stocks without regard to their firepower.
These features have no effect on the killing power of the weapon, they merely make the gun look
different. (Slide with comparison of banned and unbanned guns)
b.
Having a grip at a slightly different angle isnt going to stop you from walking into a
school and killing innocent children. Having a grip at a slightly different angle isnt going to
prevent a murderer from killing his victim. No one with the intent to kill is going to change their
mind based on whether the gun has a pistol grip, flash suppressor, or collapsible stock, and not
having these features will not make guns any less deadly.
c.
Criminals dont care about the law. A 1997 U.S. Justice Department study found that
among those inmates who carried a firearm during the offense for which they were sent to jail
39.2% obtained their firearm through an illegal/street source. Almost 40% of guns used in
crimes come from an illegal source, demonstrating the ease with which these laws can be
bypassed. Trying to stop criminals from getting their hands on illegal guns is about as effective
as trying to stop drug users from getting their hands on illegal drugs.

III.

Conclusion

A. Review
1. A solution needs to be found to the problem of gun violence in the United States. We need
to realize that the current laws in place not only are ineffective but also can lead to loss of life.
B.

Clincher

1. We dont need more laws that do nothing, we need to change our society. The American
culture glorifies crime and violence, we give mass murderers 24/7 specials on major news
networks and give our citizens socioeconomic conditions that facilitate violent crimes. Until
these change, we will not see an end to gun violence.

Works Cited
Volume 30, Number 2 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), Would Banning
Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic
Evidence.
"Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun." Gary
Kleck and Marc Gertz. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Fall 1995.
Wintemute, Garen J., Gun Shows Across a Multistate American Gun Market: Observational
Evidence of the Effects of Regulatory Policies, 13 Inj. Prevention 150, 150 (2007), at
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/13/3/150.
Report: "Firearm Use by Offenders." Caroline Wolf Harlow, U.S. Department of Justice,
November 2001