Why We Should Ban Handguns in the United States, by Nicholas Dixon is an interesting article. Dixon's thesis is that the number of handguns in the United States is directly proportional to crimes committed involving handguns here in the United States. In my opinion, the author does a good job supporting his thesis by giving statistical information of other countries. Dixon starts by showing a chart of different countries and their rate of handgun homicides per population. The chart shows seven countries including the United States and the information is very supportive of Dixon's thesis, but what about all the other countries out there, which we will get to in the following paragraph. Dixon also argues that even though a ban on handguns would most likely take the handguns from law abiding citizens and not criminals, over time handguns will be harder and harder to get for criminals thus reducing the number of crimes committed with handguns. Dixon's argument is mostly supported by other countries and their results from stringent handgun laws. In conclusion, Dixon states that the loss of handguns to law abiding citizens is minimal to the many harmful uses of handguns.
             The False Promise of Gun Control, by Daniel D. Polsby is an effective article showing that a ban on handguns is not needed. Polsby makes several good points in his argument on gun control. One point is that the demand for handguns is not going to change that much. There are two factors determining the value of guns among people. The first is how much one wants to control and have the upper hand during a controversial situation, and second is how likely is a confrontation requiring a gun is. Therefore, a gun is much more valuable to someone who intends to use it more often, such as a criminal, and is then willing to pay higher prices for guns. Whereas the value of a gun to a normal person would not be that great. On the contrary, if everyone ha...