Pro Gun Control

Gun control generally refers to laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms. They vary greatly around the world. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, have very strict limits on gun possession while others, like the United States, have, compared to most industrial democracies, relatively few restrictions .

Proponents of gun control generally argue that widespread gun ownership increases the danger of gun-related crime, homicide, and suicide. Opponents argue that gun control does not reduce gun-related injuries, murder, or suicide, and some argue that certain regulations violate individual liberties.

Terminology and context

Gun control refers to domestic regulation of firearm

manufacture, trade, possession, use, and transport, specifically with regard to the class of weapons referred to as small arms .
In 2007, it was estimated that there are, globally, about 875 million small arms distributed amongst civilians, law enforcement agencies, and armed forces. Of these firearms 650 million, or 75 per cent, are held by civilians. U.S. civilians account for 270 million of this total. A further 200 million are controlled by state military forces. Law enforcement agencies have some 26 million small arms. Non-state armed groups have about 1.4 million firearms. Finally, gang members hold between 2 and 10 million small arms. Together, the small arms arsenals of non-state armed groups and gangs account for, at most, 1.4 per cent of the global total.
Regulation of civilian firearms
Barring a few exceptions, most countries in the world allow civilians to purchase firearms subject to certain restrictions. A 2011 survey of 28 countries over five continents found that a major distinction between different national regimes of firearm regulation is whether civilian gun ownership is seen as a right or a privilege. The study concluded that both the United States and Yemen were distinct from the other countries surveyed in viewing firearm ownership as a basic right of civilians and in having more permissive regimes of civilian gun ownership. In the remaining countries included in the sample, civilian firearm ownership is considered a privilege and the legislation governing possession of firearms is correspondingly more restrictive.
International and regional civilian firearm regulation
At the international and regional level, diplomatic attention has tended to focus on the cross-border illegal trade in small arms as an area of particular concern rather than the regulation of civilian-held firearms.

During the mid-1990s, however, the United Nations Economic and Social Council adopted a series of resolutions relating to the civilian ownership of small arms. These called for an exchange of data on national systems of firearm regulation and for the initiation of an international study of the issue. In July 1997, ECOSOC issued a resolution that underlined the responsibility of UN member states to competently regulate civilian ownership of small arms and which urged them to ensure that their regulatory frameworks encompassed the following aspects: firearm safety and storage; penalties for the unlawful possession and misuse of firearms; a licensing system to prevent undesirable persons from owning firearms; exemption from criminal liability to promote the surrender by citizens of illegal, unsafe or unwanted guns; and, a record-keeping system to track civilian firearms. In 1997, the UN published a study based on member state survey data titled the United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation which was updated in 1999. This study was meant to initiate the establishment of a database on civilian firearm regulations which would be run by the Centre for International Crime Prevention, located in Vienna. who were to report on national systems of civilian

firearm regulation every two years. These plans never reached fruition and further UN-led efforts to establish international norms for the regulation of civilian-held firearms were stymied. Responding to pressure from the U.S. government, any mention of the regulation of civilian ownership of small arms was removed from the draft proposals for the 2001 UN Programme of Action on Small Arms.
Although the issue is no longer part of the UN policy debate, since 1991 there have been eight regional agreements involving 110 countries concerning aspects of civilian firearm possession. The Bamako Declaration, was adopted in Bamako, Mali, on 1 December 2000 by the representatives of the member states of the Organisation of African Unity . The provisions of this declaration recommend that the signatories would establish the illegal possession of small arms and light weapons as a criminal offence under national law in their respective countries.
Studies and debates
High rates of gun mortality and injury are often cited as a primary impetus for gun control policies.

The question of whether gun control policies increase, decrease or have no effect on rates of gun violence is a difficult scientific question. While a variety of disparate sources of data on rates of firearm-related injuries and deaths, firearms markets, and the relationships between rates of gun ownership and violence exist, research into the efficacy of various gun controls has been largely inadequate. A 2004 National Research Council critical review found that while some strong conclusions are warranted from current research, the state of our knowledge is generally poor. Despite the potential for improved research design, the National Research Council review concludes that the gaps in our knowledge on the efficacy of gun control policies are due primarily to inadequate data and not to weak research methods. The result of the scarcity of relevant data is that gun control is one of the most fraught topics in American politics and scholars remain deadlocked on a variety of issues. Notably, since 1996 the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been prohibited from using its federal funding "to advocate or promote gun control," effectively ending gun violence research at the agency. The funding provision's author has said that this was an

over-interpretation.
General
A 1998 review found that suicide rates generally declined after gun control laws were enacted, and concluded that "The findings support gun control measures as a strategy for reducing suicide rates."
United States
A 2003 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine looked at the restrictiveness of gun laws and suicide rates in men and women in all 50 U.S. states and found that states whose gun laws were more restrictive had lower suicide rates among both sexes. A 2011 study found that firearm regulation laws in the United States have "a significant deterrent effect on male suicide". A 2013 study found that in the United States, "A higher number of firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state." A 1991 study of a restrictive handgun licensing law enacted in Washington, D.C. in 1976 found that the law's enactment was associated with "a prompt decline in homicides and suicides by firearms in the District of Columbia."
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