Rising crimes highlights need for gun laws

By: Furrah Qureshi

Posted: 10/19/07

We went out in a colossal group of eight, our hands firmly shoved in our pockets and scarves rolled multiple times around our necks. We suburbanites weren't braving the elements on a characteristically cold October night - we were fighting the city. I don't need to tell any student on campus that, a few blocks from Drexel, a daily death is no anomaly.

It was late at night; we were waiting for the bus and we had nothing to do except survey our surroundings. With heightened fears and cold ears, we were having a minor conversation of no particular magnitude, when we suddenly broke into a partisan debate.

Given the nature of a Philly night, violence crossed our minds more than it would have had we been watching an episode of House in a dorm room. My friend asked me if I ever wished I had a gun to protect myself. I am 69 inches tall, and every one of those 69 inches of my body is dedicated to being a staunch liberal, so I turned to her to give a disgusted smirk, but I realized that she was serious. I'm unsure of what political outlook the 60-something inches of her body hold true, but she was genuinely interested in this discussion.

I never questioned the answer I had prepared, but I did deliberate on the state of affairs for a bit: Right now, there have been 315 homicides this year alone (which I am sure will be higher by the time you read this) and the overwhelming majority were committed with guns. Single mothers have guns and weary adults who fear gang violence have guns. Citizens who have the constitutional right to bear arms are bearing these arms, but these specific arms are not the arms that go arm in arm with the violence on the streets. Illegal guns, purchased and traded on the black market, can wind up in anyone's hands, and their bullets littered in anyone's body.

There have been accusations against at least 50 gun companies in the past decade of "negligent distribution," which is to say gun companies deliberately oversupply legal retailers in order to create a substantial market for illegal guns.

I'm not so tyrannical in my views that I'm going to suggest the Second Amendment be repealed, but I absolutely think guns need to be regulated - heavily regulated.

In a world where a disgruntled student can walk onto the Virginia Tech campus with firearms and kill 32 people, and at a time when cities will tolerate nightly murders, there is more than sufficient evidence to change the social norm. Personally, I don't like any activity related to guns - target shooting, hunting, murdering.

I don't think letting fear rule our lives in the guise of trumped up self-defense maxims should mandate us all clamoring for a gun.

Minor disagreements have all too easily escalated into fatal altercations more than once in our city alone. I fear being shot in a Philly alley by some drug lord more than I fear government storm troopers showing up at my door (if they do, oh what a help a handgun would be).

Across the nation, there has been an increase in almost all major cities' crime rates - resulting from a lack of police or an excessive amount of guns? When the statistics change, the laws that combat them should too. Pennsylvania, with more permissive gun laws than other states, holds Philadelphia as the city with the highest murder rate in 2007 so far.

"Well Furrah?" she asked me as I snapped back to attention."Let me guess: You think guns don't kill people; you think people kill people. Let me tell you what I think: I think people with guns kill people."