Gun control has returned to the forefront of the debate nationally since the occurrence of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack which left seventeen dead. This was unlike previous massacres, many big companies and firms have come out firmly giving their opinions on how to limit the sale of guns by the National Rifle Association and other organizations involved in the gun sale. The citizenries and other formed groups have come out urging the government to make reforms in the process of the procession of the gun such as raising the age limit for an individual to be licensed for a firearm, the banning of assault rifles and expanding on the background checks. It is estimated that the country has over three hundred guns which the civilians hold. In almost all incidents, the National Rifles Association opposes the supporters of the gun control in the country. The national rifles association prioritizes the rights to guns more than they would wish to have a limitation of firearms in the market and the ones held by the civilians. The success of the gun control is most likely to be found at the state level. Through close monitoring and auditing of the guns at the state level could be much easier as compared to the control by the NRA which is in charge of the country as a whole. This is because the National Rifles Association is corresponding to the changes other nations in the world are putting in place instead of focusing on the state level which is more reasonable and achievable in the gun control. In the USA the political system and the constitution grants all the federal governments certain powers and acknowledges that states formulate and implement their laws which differ from the Washington laws national government. The states have an immense responsibility to protect and defend the safety of its residents more than the federal government. This means that for the gun safety to function correctly, the states have to be the major players.
It has been noticed with great concern that it is only after a tragedy for example, like the Parkland shooting that all the attention now shifts to the gun control in the country after the initial intense outrage. The public is always hopeful that the changes will be discussed and passed by legislative houses so that the occurrences of the tragedies are prevented from happening in the future. The incident of the mass shooting at Parklands has become a political force in the country leading to a lot of debates and protesting against the act. Around one hundred students met with the lawmakers in the state of Florida capital advocating for the gun control in all the states.
Although the rights to gun ownership are constitutionally enshrined in the United States, gun regulations have become a thorny issue. Since time in memorial, there have been several laws, and the rulings of the Supreme Court have been the major shapers of the second amendment (Samuel, 2001). This has outlined the most influencing factor of the county's federal government on the gun control. The survivors of the Parklands attack and their families met with President Donald Trump for a "listening session" at the White House. During the meeting, the President proposed that the country may start to arm the three million teachers with handguns as a way of countering the attacks on schools in an effort to protect the students. The president had a day earlier ordered the department of justice to suggest on laws of bump stocks-attachments that would make it possible for legal semi-automatic rifles to shoot bullets at the rate same as or equal to the machine guns that are illegal.
A research done by YouGov, our pollster, requested a sample that represents the Americans the attitudes concerning the control measures of the guns.
Many citizens in the USA would wish to have restrictions on the ownership of guns on people who have a mental illness. They would also want background checks to be carried out during the gun purchase. A period of five days waits period should be given between the purchase and the receipt as many citizens would like the procedure to be. Most of the people would also wish to have control of the semi-automatic weapons such as the one used in the attack at Parklands the AR-15 rifle and even the sizes of the magazine's clips limited. The proposal to station armed guards at the schools received divided attention among the Democrats and the Republicans. The most likely scenario would be that the support of arming teachers will not be supported. Practically the United States is governed by a patchwork of laws on the way persons may purchase and handle rifles. There is a distinct relationship that exists in among the number of deaths caused by guns in any state in the country and the looseness of the gun laws.
A survey shows that two hundred and eighty-five million guns are distributed among twenty percent of the adults' population. This may be the possible cause of murder rate much higher than any other country that is rich.
"Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS," Emma Gonzales, a student survivor, said in an article at a February control of guns rally that went viral. "They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. … They say that no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS."
The Congress hasn't passed any gun reforms up to now. It seems that the Congress is not ready to see any reforms soon even as the students take it to the streets and carry out peaceful demos outside the school. This act was initiated by due to investigations that were carried out on Cruz after it was prompted by snap chat post whereby he had cut his arms. The decision to have him admitted to a mental facility never materialized as the mental institution did not give consent to the idea. Those who knew him described him as somebody who had a bad temper and a person who occasionally bragged about the use of firearms
For a long time, not a lot has changed. The Congress has made it impossible to pass no important reforms on guns — and it still does not seem possible to pass, even as the students take their grievances to the media and streets.
The protest has been going on for a long time now but no significant effort can be4 seen from the Congress neither the Senate. School staff, students, and the parents are all worried about their future since the government that should care for them is not doing much towards what happened in Parklands on that fateful day.
It has been noted with a lot of concern that the federal government did not bother in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut after the six and the seven-year-olds were killed, this occurred when a criminal killed 20 children, six adults, and himself in the year 2012. This was a very sad scenario. A majority of his social media posts were often depicted by presence and love for weapons such as shotguns, long knives, and pistol. Furthermore, he was said to be involved in YouTube channels that supported extremism and fuelled hate against blacks and Muslims.
Since then, there have been more than one thousand six hundred mass killings. Most of those events have led to calls for actions and protests, the saddest thing is that but has Congress declined to allow the process every time.
According to a survey and the data collected show that the main issue is that the United States of America as a country has declined to accept it has a critical problems associated with the guns and violence involved (Christina, 2010). Moreover, the legislature continues behaving like the legal changes are some sort of mystery as if there are no years of experience and research in other developed countries that serious restrictions on rifles may save lives. During a current speech by President Donald Trump reacting to the shooting in Florida: He just mentioned the guns when referencing to "gunfire" when describing what occurred. The did not even mention the gun control or something related to that debate; he went ahead instead to simply giving promises to work "with state and local leaders to help secure our schools and tackle the difficult issue of mental health.
American leaders who are elected to positions essentially, based on their first public response, have continued for a long time to ignore what the real issues are. Most times the White House is ever neutral on proposals about ban bump stocks and background checks.
The truth is that the rifles are not the only contributor to attacks on the cities and schools. There other facts which may involve, for instance, cases of low levels of income, the growth of urban areas, and lastly alcoholism. Although the research insists that control for other confounding variables, also has been found from different time Americans ability levels of gun ownership and lack of background checks are the main reason the US is in deep trouble regarding gun attacks than its developed neighbors. The other most pressing issue is the problem is guns owned by persons with mental illness who may not have been noticed by the authorities.
Supporters of rights on guns are said to see the elevated American levels of gun attacks and take up the argument that the problem is not the guns. They lay fingers to other causes. There exist multiple issues that the gun rights supporter think are the major causes of the gun violence especially with the current generation. Example include: violence in the played video games and movies to the supposed nonfunctional traditional family.
In the recent days, the researchers are focusing mostly on mental issues. That was the simple policy by the government that President mentioned in the recent Parklands attack in his speech following the Florida shooting.
Dylan Matthews is very critical and explains to Vox, persons with mental issues are most vulnerable to be the victims, with no perpetrators to cause violence (Glenn, 2000). While Michael Stone, whose profession is a psychiatrist at Columbia University maintains a database of mass shooters, He has written in a 2015 analysis that only fifty-two out of the two hundred and five killers in the database, or about twenty-two percent and they had mental illnesses. "The mentally ill should not bear the burden of being regarded as the ‘chief' perpetrators of mass murder," he concluded.
In America's abundance of the firearms has resulted in great unrest in most states. The analysis by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in the 1990s findings, the United States has more attacks than many of the most developed countries. The chart is formed highly by data from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows the United States is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime.
Another central argument in the country is the federal governments, and local actions are never enough. A common counterpoint has been found to the evidence on the control of guns: If it can function very well, why does Chicago have so much gun violence despite having some of the strictest gun policies in the US?
Chicago has stringent laws on guns which make it a unique state as compared to other states (relatively not the strictest) (Daniel, 2013). The city has relatively high levels of gun violence (but not the worst in the United States).
However all this does not expose the lack of legislation when it comes to matter to controlling the usage of guns, else it indicates there needs to be an input of not just legislation but proper legislation. The major problem is the fact that some other states have laxer laws on the ownership of guns.
For this reason, the root problem is thus exposed which is the fact that the void lies in the inadequacy of other states laws other than Chicago's. Otherwise, the suffering of guns will continue to reign in the region. However, by all the states in the United States adopting more stringent laws when it comes to the usage of guns within the region, there might be a huge difference that will be seen when curbing the misuse of firearms.
America needs to try more when it comes to matters concerning this topic
The America's consideration to the control of guns often concentrates on a small number of explicit actions: widespread contextual checks, precincts of persons with psychological problems purchasing rifles, and a physical attack weapons sanction, for example. It is unusual that politicians in America, including those in the left, go much more than that. An example is in Australia where there exists a law on confiscation which might prove to be beneficial in this country in the long run.
With the recent increment in the levels of crime across the United States of America, it is essential to provide a way forward on how they are mainly going to curb this menace. For a period now we can concur that it does not pass without news of misuse of guns which end up in loss of lives particularly among the black community. This has even raised doubts about the inability by the government to do away with racism which is an issue of national concern. For all this and the above cases, the nation is tasked with at least finding an adequate solution to this problem. First, the best way to acknowledge is by the government actualizing their goals by providing the proper legislation which will mainly act as a deterrent to people and be discouraging them even from using the guns.
As Dylan Matthews earlier illustrated, this is a matter of concern. The United States' gun issue is dismal that is possible desires clarifications that extend extra than what we normally expect in typical suggestions if the States ever expects to go towards European levels of violence using guns.
Now, this is the perfect time for the USA to reduce the number of guns that are doing rounds around the country to at least decrease the number of deaths that are experienced. This will be achieved by some differentiated policies other than the ones already in place. America needs to learn from Australia on the policy of buyback program which is essentially a confiscation policy and it will be essential to the country as a whole.
In the Congress there rarely are recommendations that are concrete enough to aid this ailing sector. The Manchin-Toomey bill, the only thing it had was the gun legislation in Congress after Sandy Hook that almost became law, didn't even launch universal contextual checks. Topical plans have been even trivial, taking small step ladders like veto bump stocks and or to some extent refining the prevailing structure for circumstantial checks.
If the grounds of all this is a fragment of the delay is because of the Second Amendment a little needs to be done straightaway. There is rational intellectual debate going on about whether the all Americans' individual right to allow arms and forbids sterner forms of gun control are secured by the Second Amendment, the certainty is the lawmakers and the Supreme Court, receded by influential gun lobby, especially NRA, extensively come to an agreement the Second Amendment has no barricades about the far precincts can go.
In conclusion, I need to acknowledge the fact that this nation has worked tirelessly to curb this menace. However, studies show that this is not enough and hence there needs to be an update on the existing laws regarding this topic. This should be achieved by learning from the countries who have successfully achieved to do away with gun threats.
References
Fisanick, Christina. Gun Control. Greenhaven P, 2010.
Henigan, Dennis A. Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy. Potomac Books, 2009.
Spitzer, Robert J. The Politics of Gun Control. Paradigm Publishers, 2012.
Utter, Glenn H. Encyclopedia of Gun Control and Gun Rights. Oryx P, 2000.
Walker, Samuel. Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs: A Policy Guide. Wadsworth, 2001.
Webster, Daniel W, and Jon S. Vernick. Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis. Johns Hopkins UP, 2013.
