One of the most controversial topics in politics today and always is gun control. It seems like it is common sense that if you remove all guns (or even restrict certain ones), then there will be no more mass shootings. But I believe that gun control is a bad thing and will not help prevent shootings in America.

To begin with, there have been countless examples in which gun control has failed. Australia is constantly used as an argument to defend gun control, but according to USA Today, since the 1996 laws banning guns, armed robberies rose by 51 percent unarmed robberies by 37 percent, assaults by 24 percent, and kidnappings by 43 ercent. On top of that, murders fell by just 3 percent, and manslaughter rose by 16%. According to BBC News, in England, handgun crime in the UK rose by 40 percent in the two years after they passed a gun ban in 1997. And of course there is Chicago, where there are the strictest gun laws in the country, where over 300 people have been shot in the first 30 days of they year.

Next, gun control will not work because laws do not apply to criminals. Just because you ban all guns, it doesn’t mean that guns will just magically disappear. By banning all weapons (or just assault weapons), all you are doing is taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. Although guns and alcohol have different factors that go into them, there’s a reason why prohibition failed. Just because they are illegal, it doesn’t mean that criminals won’t get their hands on guns.

Lastly, gun control is not a good idea because guns are not as big of a problem as they have been made out to be. More people died from car crashes, alcohol, drugs (which are already illegal), tobacco, many diseases, and more than do from guns per year. Are we going to make tobacco and alcohol illegal? Back to guns, over 1/3 of gun related deaths come from suicide, which is an issue that should be focused on more. Many gun control advocates say that we should ban assault weapons, but assault weapons account for less than 2 percent of gun related deaths, and less than 1% of injuries.

While it may seem like a good idea, gun control has not proven to be a successful way of preventing people from being killed.