Edmund F. McGarrell

In the following viewpoint, Edmund F. McGarrell maintains that gun laws are ineffective at reducing violent crime because they focus too much on the number of guns that are in American society and not on who owns those guns. He claims that gun control laws, as currently written, are based on the faulty belief that societies with more guns experience more gun violence. McGarrell asserts that guns, if owned by law-abiding citizens, can in fact deter crime. He concludes that for gun control laws to be effective, they need to ease restrictions on legal possession and target illegal possession and use. McGarrell is the director of the Crime Control Policy Center at the Hudson Institute. The center looks for solutions to the problem of crime in Indianapolis.

As you read, consider...