Trigger Warning: guns, suicide, domestic violence, abuse
By: Jasmine Xing
The U.S must stop gun violence by implementing harsher gun control
Thirty-nine thousand, seven hundred seventy-three. That’s the number of gun deaths in the U.S in 2017 alone. Something must be done to prevent these deaths. Gun control must be further expanded, in order to lower the number of gun deaths in the United States.
In comparison to other high-income countries, Americans hold the most guns, and yet the weakest gun laws. While the Supreme Court has placed some restrictions on the second amendment of the Constitution, which protects the right “to keep and bear arms,” they have also repealed many of these restrictions, including the ban of handguns. Gun restrictions should not be repealed. They rather should be reinforced, as guns cause many deaths in the U.S. Revoking the ban of certain guns is not the right way to go about lowering gun violence rates, and will only lead to a more violent society as a growing part of the population gains ownership of guns.
Gun deaths in the U.S are on the rise, steadily increasing. In 2017, America had about 12 deaths per 100,000 people caused by gun violence, the highest in at least 40 years of America’s history. Gun-related murders get a lot more attention than suicides by gun do. About 61% of gun deaths were suicides, 35.6% were homicides, and the other 3.5% being unintentional, undetermined, or police shootings. Fifty-one percent of suicides — the majority — have something to do with a gun. In 2017, there were 22,926 suicides done using a gun. Access to a gun nearly triples the risk of committing suicide. America must put a stop to that. The best way to do so would be to implement harsher and stricter gun control laws.
Luckily, President Biden has been working to get bills passed by the House in order to help reduce gun violence. Recently, the House has closed some loopholes in the background checking system by passing two bills. This is a good step in the right direction. Congress is planning to pass more bills aimed at closing more loopholes, including one loophole that allows abusers to keep firearms, and makes sure that gun manufacturers aren’t immune to responsibility. This restricts the number of individuals permitted to buy a gun, which will help lead to an annual decrease in gun violence. The Biden Administration isn’t stopping there, as the Justice Department has also proposed a rule in an attempt to stop the spread of “ghost guns”. Ghost guns are the guns that criminals are able to buy in a kit and assemble themselves. These guns don’t contain a serial number, so when they turn up in crime scenes, it is difficult to trace them back to an owner. The Administration is also taking other steps in enforcing harsher gun control laws.
Some argue that gun control should be minimal, so that individuals will have better self-defense, therefore leading to safer communities. However, when looking at the countries with the lowest rate of gun deaths, that’s quite the opposite of what they’ve been doing. In 2017, Japan had one of the lowest rates (0.04) of violent gun deaths per 100,000 people, not including suicide. That is significantly lower than the U.S rate of 4.43 violent gun deaths per 100,000 people (not including suicide). In contrast to America, Japan has very low ownership rates of guns and safer communities. Before ownership of these guns is allowed, individuals in Japan must have formal instruction and pass written, mental, and drug tests, as well as a thorough background check. After permitted ownership, the owners must allow their firearms to be inspected annually and inform the authorities of how their weapons and ammunition are stored.
Conducting more thorough research into an individual’s background like done in Japan before granting ownership of a gun is crucial in decreasing gun violence. Americans should be required to take the tests required to be passed in Japan before ownership of a firearm. When it’s harder to gain ownership of a gun, less people will own guns, meaning gun violence will drop. Americans own over 46% of civilian-owned guns in the world, while only accounting for under 5% of the world’s population. So, if less people own guns, the chance of ill-intentioned individuals getting their hands on a gun and being able to carry out reckless actions is much lower. If everyone were given a gun, society would become much more violent, and gun deaths would be even more common than they are today. Therefore, allowing easy ownership of guns is not the solution to gun violence, and would only cause more problems in society. The U.S needs to learn from what Japan has been doing. It will lead to a less violent society.
Safer societies are not built on universal possession of firearms. Access to firearms will only lead to higher rates of suicide and violence. America is a country that members of other countries look up to. Because of this, gun violence tends to be buried by admirable parts of American culture. However, gun violence is a serious matter and deserves attention from everyone and action from politicians. While the Biden Administration has started taking steps in decreasing gun violence, there is still a long way to go.
Gun ownership rates in the U.S. are extremely high
Americans own more guns than any other country
Citations
Statistics. Giffords. Retrieved from https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-violence-statistics/.
Aizenman, N; Silver, M. (2019, Aug 5). How The U.S Compares With Other Countries In Deaths From Gun Violence. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/05/743579605/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-deaths-from-gun-violence.
Gramlich, J. (2019, Aug 16). What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/.
Masters, J. (2019, Aug 6). U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons.