Blog 7 Assignment

On August 2, 2017, the Opinion Page from Los Angeles Times posted an article "Does carrying a gun make you safer? No. In fact, right-to-carry laws increase violent crime" by Patt Morrison. This article explains that the right-to-carry law has made violence happen more frequently than before the law was passed. Morrison uses Texas as an example, he explains that in 1996 before the law was adopted, violent crimes were only at 6%, now throughout the years, the percentage has gone up 15% more. Morrison explains that having a gun makes people believe they are capable of doing anything with it. This could be why crime have gone up extremely high, not only in Texas, but all 50 states.

I personally believe the right-to-carry law has its pros and cons. Having a gun does make people feel safe, but a lot of things could happen to make people feel more unsafe. Reasons for this law being a good thing, is because if a woman lived at home by herself, she would feel more protected to know she has a weapon if anything were to happen. It is a good feeling to know that we are capable of protecting ourselves, especially if we have no one to help us. We see a lot of people, not just women, who live alone and need to protect themselves. I believe if they take their classes and get their license to carry a gun, this law is a good thing.

I also have my cons on this law. Some people take having a gun way too seriously and like to take advantage of it. In the article, Morrison explains how in Pennsylvania, there was a lot of traffic and an 18 year old woman cut off a guy driving a truck, so the man got out of his truck and took out his gun, which he had a permit for, and shot her in the head and drove off. If someone is angry and has a gun around, people will do the unthinkable out of anger. When getting a permit, they do check your background of past crimes, but what if someone has anger issues? No one would know that until it is too late. I do not believe we should give a gun to just anyone. I believe if there was a way to update this law, we should do more than just looking for crime records, we should check if they have disorders, anger issues, etc.

Overall, I believe this right-to-carry law is a positive law, if there were some updates to consider. A lot of people do feel safe about this law, but it needs to be used the right way instead of people thinking they can do what they want with it because they have a permit.

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