To Own
Or Not To Own?
In light of the recent
shootings at Virginia Tech, a lot of attention has been
paid to the issue of gun laws. Could stronger gun laws
___1___ this tragedy? Nobody can say for sure. Looking at
the results of the
various
approaches to gun control in countries around
the world, one can see that the evidence is
mixed.
In the United States, gun
ownership is
considered a basic right that ___2___ appears in the
Constitution. While laws
vary,
Americans in most states can own
a variety of
guns, including
handguns and
rifles. Taiwan,
on the other hand,
is the exact ___3___ of the US. Using, owning, selling,
and making almost all types of
firearms is illegal in Taiwan.
___4___ the results of these different
systems, Taiwan and the US are similar in some ways. In
2005, the US had 5.6
homicides for every 100,000 people to Taiwan's
3.97. Both Taiwan and the US are
well below the top
nations in the world ___5___ murders. However, America
experienced almost 7.5
times as many violent crimes per 100,000 people
as Taiwan did.
The United States and Taiwan are very
different places and gun laws
alone
can't possibly explain
all the variations
in crime ___6___ the two. However, as we see in
this case, there is some evidence that violence and gun
ownership are ___7___. The
debate will
surely continue. Hopefully, as more
data is
analyzed, the
conclusions
that are reached will help prevent future
tragedies. |