Arms and Poverty
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The right to bear arms in the U.S coincides with the alarming crime rates and increasing poverty. The law of legal arms is embedded in the American constitution and allows any U.S citizen to possess a licensed weapon. The relationship between lower class and the criminal mortality rate and the significance it has by allowing weaponry in the hands of non-authorized personnel will be analyzed in this paper. This paper will argue that poverty makes a person directed towards criminal activities. Even if it is true that all poor are not criminals and all criminals are not poor, but there is a possibility of people who are living in poverty tend to commit crimes that brings up the relationship between them (John Hagan & Ruth Peterson, 1995, P.14). History has proven that in fact there is a direct link between crime and poverty. The first section of the paper will be discussing the rate of poverty in the United States. This paper will then discuss why poverty is the main reason for gang related activities in many parts of U.S. Finally, the essay will be discussing what U.S government can do to limit firearms without changing the laws and the reasons for preventing crime and poverty.
Today, poverty is one of the biggest issues in United States. Although, U.S is full of generous people, but there are some individuals and areas where poverty is at its peak, and those particular areas are the roots of criminals and gang related activities. Now the question is; does poverty cause crime? I think it does and there are various reasons which explain that poverty effects crime in many ways. “There is a higher rate of mental illness in the poor than in the rich” (Brill Norman, 1993). This quote explains that poverty can lead to high levels of stress and may turn an individual to commit violent crimes. What if we have no shelter to live, and not enough food to eat; so how would we feel? It is true that there would be some of us who would survive in these odds, but most of us would not be able to handle this situation. They would try to get money by any means; many youngsters in the age range of 12-20 from urban cities would join gangs because it is an easy way for them to make huge amounts of money at a young age, and there would be high chance for them to commit crimes. In mid 1980s gangs in America started growing at a fast pace, as the number of decent jobs decreased (Jim Parker, 2007). I will be explaining about gang-related activities furthermore in this paper. As of 2010, poverty rate in United States was 15.1 percent, of the whole population in U.S, there are 46.2 million people living in poverty and this rate is increasing by 2.6 million consecutively every year.
Also, another reason that associates with poverty is high unemployment in America. Higher unemployment would certainly increase poverty and at the same time it will lead to more crime because of depression associated with being unemployed. Lack of work also depends on the area, the amount of minority population in an area is also related with poverty, there is also racism towards minorities that leads to lower wages and fewer job, resulting higher crime and poverty rate (Brill Norman, 1993). For example, cities like Compton, CA, Camden, NJ and many more have a very large amount of unemployed people, as of survey in 2010, poverty rate in Camden is 33.2 percent and there crime rate is 40 percent, and these two cities are declared as the most dangerous neighbourhoods in United States. Also, in 1995, all metropolitan areas with over 12 percent unemployment rate had at least 30 percent minorities (according to UCR, 1995-1998). After looking at the rates we can conclude that how poverty is common in different neighbourhood of United States.
However, gang violence and right to use bear arms are also a major problem in U.S, it started in 1980s when decent number of jobs declined and for example gangs like Bloods and Crips started and they were at their peak at that time. Again, I would say that