Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

found that 86% disagreed with gun control being effective in the US (Debate.org, 2017). The

first reason being, the right to bear arms, as it stands for a reason of self-defence. Further-

more, if the majority is pro-gun (Appendix A), despite reasons of gun culture, utilitarianism

argues that the most people are to be happy. Of course, this argument is flawed by Bentham’s

further reasoning of utilitarianism, which not only looks at what will satisfy the majorities’

wants, but rather what will cause them less pain collectively.

The US government is based heavily on the amendments, as well as culture of guns in Amer-

ica, and is unlike any other country in the world. Due to the extreme amount of guns in

America, totalling more per than 1 per capita (Ingraham, 2015), gun control may be a strug-

gle to implement and could very much detract from other areas of concern in the government.

Gun violence behaviours have already been developed within Chicago, and with gang vio-

lence, gun control may possibly induce more criminal behaviours than before. The second

amendment stands in place to protect citizens from a government of tyranny. It can be as-

sumed that Tyranny would cause mass unhappiness for the population of the US, deeming it

a negative outcome according to utilitarianism. The infamous German Tyrant, Adolf Hitler,

rose to power over a country that had no possible way of fighting back.

There are two contrasting arguments formed by utilitarianism. The first argument through

the harm principle of Mill, states that citizens are to be disarmed due to their destructive

tendencies. However due to the reasons of gun culture and amendment government basing, a

utilitarian may in fact suggest that gun control is a waste of society’s time and money. The

negative outcomes of gun control is a consequence of an action that isn’t favourable to the

nation (the majority). With these two possible views on utilitarianism, the problem of only