In recent years, the United States has faced a very challenging political environment. This turmoil has had its uprise my entire life, but it has been especially complicated just as I have entered the years of my life where I can truly begin to understand the world around me. As a young child growing up in the unrest, a certain concern has been at the forefront of my mind. While I may not fully understand the financial aspects or all of the other challenges that go into a government, one thing that I do understand is that there should be a universal principle for a government: to keep people safe.
Throughout my entire school career, nation-wide death by gun violence is something that has been constant. Americans have seen numerous different types of gun violence crimes, like police shootings, domestic crimes, homicides, suicides, mass shootings and school shootings. The looming possibility of a school shooting has been normalized in school for my entire life. As a child, I did not understand why these violent crimes could just happen in my country. But, as I have gained awareness of the political state of my country, I can now do my own research as to why this is a problem.
To me, the statistics say it all. The United States gun culture is considered a global outlier. We are the only country in the entire world that has more civilian guns than people, at a rate of 120 civilian guns per 100 people. That rate does not even account for the number of guns illegally traded. The country with the second highest number of civilian guns is the Falkland Islands (a British territory) at 62 guns per 100 people. That number is about half of the United States’. Researchers estimate that the United States has around 46% of the world’s civilian gun cache.
With that in mind, the United States also has the highest firearm homicide rate of all of the world’s developed countries. In 2020 alone, our gun homicide rate increased by 33%. No other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as the United States. The U.S. has had 57 times as many total school shootings as the other major industrialized nations combined. Additionally, the U.S. accounted for 44% of the world’s suicides by firearm in 2019. This rate is seven times higher than in other developed nations. That marks just a few of the categories of gun violence that the United States is the highest in. There are even more shocking statistics regarding our gun violence crimes, too. To name another, our nation’s firearm-related civilian death toll over the past 50 years exceeds the total number of soldiers who perished in combat in all of our wars combined.
Many Americans think that people having more guns will equate to less crime. I believe the thought process behind this is restricted only to their perspective and does not look at the entire picture of the U.S. gun problem. These people believe that if every innocent civilian has more guns, they will be safer. While guns can keep people safe, what is not acknowledged here is that with more guns available, there is a greater chance that those guns will fall into the wrong hands. Therefore, weaker gun laws would cause those who have ill intentions to have easier access to guns, making gun violence crimes more abundant. What also is not understood by these people is that it is not about restricting the guns from innocent people; it is about restricting the guns from those who plan to harm themselves or others with them. Studies show that where there are more firearms, there are more gun-related deaths.
The solution to the U.S. gun problem lies in increasing the strength of our gun laws so that ill-intentioned people do not have easy access to such deadly weapons. This is backed by studies of other countries’ stronger gun laws and their corresponding lower gun violence rates. Other developed countries do not have fewer mental health issues or are less crime-prone, they just have stronger gun laws to reduce the number of dangerous people from having guns.
There are many procedures that could be implemented when increasing the strength of gun laws. These include things like background checks, waiting periods, contact with family and friends, Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), firearm safety conversions and basic gun safety training. Background checks could include contacting family and friends, but would ensure that the person looking to purchase a gun does not have a history of violent crimes or a mental illness that would make them pose a threat to themselves or others. Waiting periods could be set in place for individuals who might be suicidal. ERPOs are legal orders to remove a gun set in place by clinicians or family members that think that the person in question poses a threat to themselves or others. Firearm safety conversations or training could be included when someone is purchasing a gun to make sure that they can adequately and safely handle it.
Increasing gun laws would not restrict those with good intentions from getting a gun. It may be a lengthier process to purchase a gun, but if it meant that it would save thousands of lives and keep so many safe, would it not be worth it? If you really do not have any bad intentions, you should not be worried about having stricter gun laws. The main goal of strengthening gun laws is not to take away innocent people’s guns, it is simply to prevent horrible people from obtaining them. With the data right there, we can never deny that we do not have a gun violence problem in the United States. We can put protection principles in place everywhere in our country, but it will never decrease our numbers in gun violence, and people’s lives will still be at stake. The research shows that it does not come down to increasing protection against shooters. It shows that it comes down to eliminating the shooters by taking the guns out of their hands. This is a topic of safety and life or death, which is what we should be most concerned about.
To learn more about gun violence, these are my resources:
https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/gun-violence-prevention
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-comparison-intl-cmd/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/health/u-s-most-mass-shootings/index.html
https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/
Frederick Schleter • Sep 26, 2023 at 7:06 am
Excellent article, well written and thought provoking. Thanks for your insight into a huge problem in this country