MOSCOW, November 26 (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — In the United States, the citizens need to own guns to protect themselves, as the country is replete with weapons, experts told Sputnik Wednesday, linking the protests that swept the United States after the verdict on the Ferguson shooting was announced, with gun control issues.
“Guns contribute to violence. That's why there are so many gun deaths in the US for any individual person, guns can also contribute to safety. In a country filled with guns easily obtained by criminals, the law-abiding sometimes need a gun to protect themselves,” a professor of law at UCLA, Adam Winkler told Sputnik.
“Teasing out the relationship between guns and crime is difficult, but we do know that when there is a violent interaction and a gun is involved, things can go terribly wrong as they did in Ferguson,” Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, John Donohue stressed.
The protests that swept the United States over the past days following a grand jury’s decision Monday not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on August 9, have once again raised the issues, related to the gun control debate in the United States.
According to the Washington Post statistics, the United States has the world's highest gun ownership rate, also having the highest rate of firearm-related murders per capita. 88.8 Americans out of 100 have a gun.
So that the problems of gun control are closely associated with police abuses, as police officers are afraid of the very people whom they are supposed to protect.
“The large number of guns in America profoundly effects the police. They must be trained to expect people to have guns, which could be used against the officers. Police have to be much more concerned about their safety in America than in countries with very few guns,” Adam Winkler explained.
“There is little doubt the police are fearful about the prospect of encountering a criminal with a gun. This leads many police departments to require wearing of bulletproof vests,” Donohue told Sputnik, adding that the protests that are occurring around the country “because of the perception that white officers kill unarmed black men too frequently.”
In St. Louis County some 45 people were arrested and at least 13 have been injured in riots. Major networks broadcasting live from the town showed local police firing tear gas on protesters.
This is the second wave of protests linked to the incident with the first hitting the country in the aftermath of the shooting. Police then were criticized for using heavy-handed tactics to quell the protests.
