Recent Gun Violence and the Need for Effective Gun Control Laws
Recent gun violence in America has sparked a heated discussion over the creation of effective gun control and regulation laws. Even though almost 30,000 Americans are killed by guns each year, it is extremely arguable what the ideal solution to this problem is. Due to limited viewpoints on the required answers, the creation of remedies for the secured right of every American to own a handgun has frequently reached a dead end (Newman & Head, 2017).
Factors Contributing to the Rise in Gun Violence
Numerous socioeconomic factors and characteristics that affect the frequency of homicides, violent crimes, suicides, and unintentional shootings have contributed to the rise in gun violence. These determinants include exposition to violent games and movies, mental illnesses, drug abuse, violent pop culture, media sensationalization, the high prevalence of guns as well as a combination of these factors. Interestingly, more than half of gun deaths are suicide cases facilitated mainly by the high availability of guns (Stroebe, 2016).
Comparison to Other Developed Democracies
Moreover, the statistical deaths due to gun violence are phenomenal in America as compared to other developed democracies such as Australia and the United Kingdom which have fewer civilian arms. The negative impacts of this include deaths, economic disadvantage, post-traumatic stress as well as health challenges in the victims. Efforts have been made to bring down the level of gun violence through policy restriction of arms purchased by at-risk individuals including youths and mentally ill people, policing and law enforcement strategies, education programs, stiff sentencing for offenders and buyback of guns (Swanson & Felthous, 2015). However, these strategies have borne minimal advancements towards ending gun violence in America.
Reducing Access to Handguns
Despite the fact that lower gun violence rates in other developed democracies such as Australia can be partly attributed to fewer guns in the hands of civilians, attempts to reduce access to handguns for mentally ill and young people have not produced significant results due to the statistical minimality of gun violence attributed to this group of offenders. Furthermore, juveniles can access guns owned by family members and friends. In Australia, the mandatory gun buyback and regulation of handguns have helped to reduce gun violence significantly (Newman & Head, 2017). In this case, the best policies to implement in America should be aimed at regulating gun ownership in an attempt to reduce the guns to citizens ratio (Ruggles & Rajan, 2014).
Biases and Stereotypes in the Gun Debate
However, individual biases and stereotypes crowd the gun debate in America. Masculinity, mental health, and racial biases have been found to influence many decisions by Americans to own firearms. The biased association of guns with power and masculinity and the stereotypic association of violence to certain races has motivated many white Americans to own guns. Also, the depiction of gun offenders as mentally unstable has shifted the objectivity of the debate since they only compose a small fraction of the gun violence offenders. As a proponent of gun regulations, I might also be biased against gun holders since I am not a gun owner. This cognitive bias can trigger defensive tendencies due to the endowment effect triggered on gun holders. To counter these biases, sociological theories ought to be used to ensure objective and conceptual analysis of the social problem as stipulated in Max Weber's interpretive sociology (Kleiman, Hassin & Trope, 2014).
A Holistic Approach to Addressing Gun Violence
In conclusion, a holistic approach to the gun violence menace should be taken to implement gun regulations that do not impede on the rights of citizens through social, political, and legal interventions. In this way, the stereotypes, biases, and misconceptions about gun misuse can be understood while the glaring statistical gun fatalities can be addressed through legal interventions, education, media reporting, drugs control among other social and economic frameworks.
References
Kleiman, T., Hassin, R. R., & Trope, Y. (2014). The control-freak mind: Stereotypical biases are eliminated following conflict-activated cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 498.
Newman, J., & Head, B. (2017). The national context of wicked problems: Comparing policies on gun violence in the US, Canada, and Australia. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 19(1), 40-53.
Ruggles, K. V., & Rajan, S. (2014). Gun possession among American youth: A discovery-based approach to understand gun violence. PLoS one, 9(11), e111893.
Stroebe, W. (2016). Firearm availability and violent death: The need for a culture change in attitudes toward guns. Analyses of Social Issues and Public policy, 16(1), 7-35.
Swanson, J. W., & Felthous, A. R. (2015). Guns, mental illness, and the law: Introduction to this issue. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 33(2-3), 167-177.
