Because of the Second Amendment, gun possession in the U.S. is seen as a right rather than a privilege, allowing the majority of people to own a gun with very few restrictions.
Unsurprisingly, this has also led to an increase of mass shootings, especially in states where gun laws are less restrictive. These mass shootings tend to occur in malls, churches and – unfortunately – schools, leading to many places having to enforce protocols aimed to prevent mass shootings.
Americans tend to link other internal or external factors to explain why some people commit mass shootings, rather than blaming the guns themselves. Some people blame mental illness as the main cause for mass shootings, while others blame things such as Fortnite or other similar video games because they “promote violence.”
In reality, these scapegoats only pose as an excuse for why mass shootings occur, allowing Americans to marginalize certain groups of people to relieve themselves of responsibility while maintaining the right to bear arms.
There is also a common misconception in the U.S. that countries with stricter gun laws have more stabbing deaths and injuries. However, this statement is misleading and not always true. In many European countries, it’s true that stabbing rates are slightly higher than in the U.S., however it is nowhere near the rates of gun deaths and other violence in America. The UK is ranked No. 42 for their crime levels compared to other countries, whereas the U.S. is ranked No. 30.
Furthermore, in Australia, where gun control laws are very strict, the rates of violence are even lower than in most European countries, ranking at No. 47 for their crime levels. This is clear evidence that having loose restrictions on gun control are a major factor in causing violence in the U.S. As much as pro-gun politicians like President Donald Trump try to deny it, the statistics don’t lie.
If it’s still difficult to see why gun control is so important, we can compare it to sports betting. In recent years, many states have legalized and advertised sports betting on television. This has led to many people who wouldn’t have originally started sports betting to do so because of the hype surrounding it. Because of this, more than $100 billion has been taken from Americans caught up in the excitement to join the bandwagon.
We are experiencing a similar issue when it comes to guns, with many Americans rallying and protesting for looser gun restrictions and forming groups to support their ideas. This leads many people to own a gun just because they can, giving them a tool to commit massively violent crimes against others in a way that is more impersonal than stabbing or strangling.
Of course, gambling addiction is not as serious of an issue as mass shootings, which is why it is still allowed to be advertised on TV.
For these reasons, the only way to ensure that mass shootings stops is to either modify or repeal the Second Amendment, putting stricter laws on who can buy and own a gun and having more thorough background checks for people who do own one.
“I do feel like revising the Second Amendment to be more restrictive could definitely help solve the issue. It’s a good idea to put restrictions on certain things so that people don’t have as much access to it as they do,” said Brooklyn Stone, a first-year biology major.
“I think that kind of having more control over who is able to purchase the gun would be helpful,” said Isabella Prescod, a fifth-year nutrition sciences major.
It’s important to not get sucked into the hivemind that guns are not the problem, which is a message commonly spewed by conservative politicians. Evidence has shown that guns are, in fact, the problem. Especially in a culture where having a gun is seen as a right.
If people do dangerous things while on drugs, then the drugs are taken away from them. Why are we not doing the same with guns when they are far more dangerous than any drug?
