This is America, the home of mass shootings, the home of the most guns per capita, and the home of blaming these incidents on mental health issues. I have heard multiple arguments as to why gun regulation is not going to help reduce the amount of gun deaths, and why less regulation will ultimately lead to a safer America.
Now while I realize that Americans LOVE their guns and we are more than likely FAR away from any sort of regulation, I will still try my best to get the facts out there so that people at least know the consequences of their love for firearms.
At 112.6 guns per 100 people, we are far and away the country with the most guns. We also have mass shootings at least once a month. The theory that the more guns a society has, the safer said society is, is debunked just by the numbers. Out of 251,000 reported gun deaths in 2016, 37,200 of those were right here in Murica’. In fact, according to Vox:
“The top six’s gun death tolls for 2016: Brazil was 43,200, the US 37,200, Mexico 15,400, Colombia 13,300, Venezuela 12,800, and Guatemala 5,090. Collectively, these countries made up less than 10 percent of the global population but 50.5 percent of the world’s gun deaths.”
2. More than one mass shooting occurs every day in the United States
In this New York Times article, it shows that there is a mass shooting (four or more individuals being shot) everyday, and on average, at least two. Of course we don’t hear about all of them, due to the fact that anything less than 5 deaths is deemed “not newsworthy” because it is such a frequent occurrence.
3. “Gun laws won’t stop criminals from getting guns.”
I have several responses to this, and I don’t even have to use numbers or data. Just a little bit of common sense. For instance, with this logic, murder laws should be taken off the books because “Murders gonna murder anyway.” Apply this logic with any other crime and you’ll see why it’s a shitty argument. “Rapist’s gonna rape anyway so why even have laws against it?”
My second response would be “Not everyone has access to the black market. So by reducing the EASE in which people are able to buy guns legally, would also reduce the overall number of gun sales because not everyone has street connects to obtain weapons.”
The other part about this that makes me laugh is they use the two opposite sides of the argument to make the same point. “Well what about Chicago (which is really just a metaphor for black people/the hood)?” According to your own philosophy, Chicago (the hood) should be the SAFEST place in America. Everyone’s packing their tools and according to the argument of “less regulation = more safety”, this should lead to a decline in gun deaths. But when you bring this up, then they will say “But those are illegal guns.” Ok, so let’s say the laws of Illinois weren’t strict on the right to carry or own a gun, but the economic situation was still the exact same. Do you REALLY think that because the guns were legally purchased, that all of a sudden the gun death total would shrink? In Ed Lover’s voice “C’mon son.”
I get everyone’s reasons for wanting to keep their heat. Protection of themselves and their families in the event a crisis happens. I get it. That’s a very reasonable stance to take. I get going to the range to relieve stress. I think there are better ways, but not everything works for everybody. So I’m not judging.
All I’m asking of people is to look at the data. If you still don’t want any sort of reasonable regulation, such as background checks, the bans of high-capacity magazines, and the ban of guns that can fire large numbers of rounds in a very short period of time, then maybe you just don’t care that much about America’s extremely high number of gun deaths per year. By the way, I have never once heard a progressive argue for banning all guns, which seems to be the take away whenever a left wing person mentions the word “regulation”. Regulation is just a set of rules to make sure things don’t get out of control. As we can see, the lack of regulation has led to hundreds of thousands of gun deaths in my lifetime, and as far as I can tell, isn’t changing any time soon.
