Guns, Guns, and Guns
Crowd after shooting in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July. Video by Tyler Doudrick.
Gun violence in the United States is no longer a shock to the general public; the rate of gun deaths has increased by 33% from 2011 to 2020 and is only growing as time goes on. The recent Highland Park parade shooting on July 4 is already the 309th mass shooting of this year.
The reasons why gun violence is prevalent are clear. For every 100 people in the US, approximately 120.5 civilian-owned guns are kept, the most in the world. The fact that guns outnumber people puts every U.S. civilian in potential danger. The unbalanced gun ownership that is not shown in this statistic also points to the fact that gun owners usually have multiple guns, which can easily overpower non-holders in a conflict. Guns are to blame for 79% of homicides and 53% of suicides. The ease with which it can cause harm is a significant concern for Americans.
President Joe Biden signing the newly passed gun control bill into law. Courtesy of AP Images
To combat this issue, Congress finally passed a gun control bill after decades as a response to the Uvalde shooting. It includes stricter background checks for buyers under the age of 21, funding for school security, and encouraging states to remove guns through red flag laws. Although this may be crucial in cutting down the number of guns in the country, the government is not directly banning or restricting weapons, which has been a crucial step in eliminating gun violence in other countries. Also, this gun reform is paired with the Supreme Court decision against New York’s law limiting firearms in public. The legislative and the judicial branches are at odds against each other in the matter of guns which are continuously killing thousands every year. So what is the reason for the logic in favor of firearms?
Gun rights activists and groups mostly base their arguments on the Second Amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Pro-gun individuals usually claim that this amendment is fundamental to liberty, similar to free speech, and provides the right to defend oneself. However, “liberty,” as defined by the Constitution, is “freedom from arbitrary and unreasonable restraint upon an individual.” Guns can be used to put an individual under restraint through fear or violence, which may happen arbitrarily, as gun ownership is tied to impulsive anger. As for the self-defense argument, it is considered to be the most controversial due to the difficulty in determining instances of defensive gun use (DGU). However, a survey has shown only 14.3% of firearm victimizations were DGUs (70,000 out of 484,800) in 2018. This shows the current justification for gun usage is faulty and unrealistic.
Also, according to Adam Winkler, a law professor at the UCLA School of Law, there are two types of laws under the Second Amendment: judicial and aspirational. The former is how “courts interpret the amendment in their decisions,” and the latter is “how the amendment is used in political dialogue.” He claims that the disparity between the two leads to a lack of legal relevance to laws that protect gun rights. In essence, the Second Amendment is losing its purpose and requires a repeal.
An NRA convention in Houston after the Uvalde school shooting. Courtesy of Reuters.
Without effective action, the National Rifle Association (NRA) will continue to lobby and prevent additional gun reforms from passing. The past decade has shown general trends of gun rights spending, outvaluing gun control spending. In the first quarter of this year alone, the NRA has already spent $600,000 in efforts to deter gun reforms which led to $97 million in revenue. However, the economic benefit solely for the NRA pales in comparison to the nation's economic cost of gun violence: approximately $810 billion a year. The economic imbalance also implies the reality of the state of the nation. Must the United States suffer under laws that value the rights of guns over its people?
If the U.S. hopes to solve this gun epidemic, its government should only view the recent gun control bill as the start. One approach is to take examples from other countries which successfully implemented gun bans and nearly eliminated gun violence. The UK, Australia, and New Zealand promptly acted within a year or so in response to gun homicides through buyback programs and absolute bans. Applying these proven methods can lower gun violence in America from thousands to a few in a short period. Indeed, the problems of opposition to gun control and the sheer scale of firearm ownership in the US may require a gradual change, but creating a safer country for its citizens with speed is necessary.