The Right to Arms : The Criminology of Guns

This article seeks to sketch the criminological underpinnings of the Second Amendment right to arms. Most agree with prohibiting possession of firearms by convicted felons, violent misdemeanants and the mentally unbalanced as our laws currently do. But an insistent and articulate minority argues for going further: to banning possession of handguns, or all guns, by ordinary people. This is unfortunate, their argument is preposterous: it is false to assert that most murders are committed by ordinary citizens who kill because they happen to have a firearm in a moment of anger