In the article, Eric Talmadge states, "Guns were used in only seven murders in Japan — a nation of about 130 million — in all of 2011, the most recent year for official statistics." This country is a case where gun regulations actually seem to work. Violence overall is minimal in Japan, likely thanks to their culture.
Also stated by Eric Talmadge in the article, "Gun-rights advocates in the United States often cite Switzerland as an example of relatively liberal regulation going hand-in-hand with low gun crime. The country's 8 million people own about 2.3 million firearms. But firearms were used in just 24 Swiss homicides in 2009, a rate of about 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants." Switzerland is a somewhat rare example of a country with loose gun laws as well as low gun violence. This country seems to be one of the few that have figured out how to manage guns.
Eric Talmadge also states in the article, "According to a 2011 study by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, 34,678 people were murdered by firearms in Brazil in 2008, compared to 34,147 in 2007." In spite of strict laws that nearly ban all guns, Brazil has some of the worst gun violence in the world. Brazil is evidence that strict regulations on guns is not the answer to the U.S.'s woes.
Benjamin Franklin once said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It is unwise to just give up rights to and give more power to the government, because once they have that power, they will never let go of it.
The laws regarding guns that governments impose seem to have little effect compared to other variables. These laws are not completely without influence, but gun violence cannot be stopped by those laws alone.
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