Despite being a world power and one of the developed nation of the world, United States of America is going through a number of social issues. Some of these have slowly accumulated, while others are more recent. Everything that the government and people of a country do have an impact on the social setup, wither direct or indirect. The purpose of the research paper is to look at the social impact of one such issue that America is going through. The issue that will be the focus of the paper is firearms laws in the United States, the gun violence and its impact on the society. The reason behind selecting the topic is the going mass shootings throughout the United States, and to help understand, whether it really is because of the slack firearms regulation laws.
Thesis Statement
Gun violence is existing due to the lenient firearm regulation, and it is having a negative impact on the American Society.
Independent variable
Firearm Regulation
Dependent Variable
Gun Violence
American Society
Impact of Lenient Gun Policies
Victims of Gun Violence
Gun violence in the form of mass shootings, specifically at schools is creating fear among students and parents, due to the increasing number of students being killed.
Gun Culture
In states with lenient gun laws, the gun culture is at its peak. And it is these states with the highest rate of firearms-related deaths.
Healthcare Issue
it is increasingly costing public healthcare more to take care of and treat for firearms-related injuries. Also, men are more prone to get injured than, women.
Impact on Society at Large
It is creating fear in the society. It is making individuals living in the society feel as if keeping a gun is the only way to resolve conflicts and to protect oneself.
Gun Violence and its Impact on American Society
Introduction
The first ten amendments to the American constitution were ratified in 1791, which collectively are known as the Bill of Rights. The second amendment among these was the right of US citizens to bear and keep arms (Chemerinsky, 2006). Though at that time it might have seemed compulsory to give American citizens the right to bear arms, though with the passage of time, and in recent years this right has been questioned by many. It has become a very controversial topic for American citizens and politicians, which has resulted in polarizing the country. Many would claim that the right to bear arms is mandatory for self-protection, protection of one’s liberty, and freedom. A study shows that in 2012 the total number of deaths as a result of firearms was 32288 in the United States, out of these almost one third were homicides and the remaining suicides (Wintemute, 2014). The lenient gun laws in America have started to create a havoc, it is turning into a major social issue for the country, which needs to be checked and revised to save innocent lives.
The purpose of the paper is to understand why there is a need for gun control reforms, what sort of reforms can be introduced and whether such reforms would reduce the prevailing gun violence or not. Excess of anything can be harmful, even if the law was implemented in the first place to protect the citizens, it is necessary to keep a check and balance. It is the responsibility of the government, by and large, to ensure that the laws in place are not being misused or targeting anyone in particular. The law should be there to protect all the citizens of America, not to protect some at the cost of others. Americans have seen too many tragic incidents in the form of mass shootings and school shootings, it is high time the country takes strict measures to revise these gun control laws, for the betterment of the entire society and not just a segment.
Guns and Gun Control
The second amendment to the US constitution, in 1791, allowed any US citizen to “keep and bear arms”. This was a right which could not be invaded by anyone. There was no change to the law for more than a decade. It was in 1934 that the first ever gun control legislation was passed in the United States. On June 26, 1934, the National Firearms Act, NFA, was passed under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which was modified a number of times due to constitutional flaws (Schultz, 2010). Soon after in 1938, the Federal Firearms Act, FFA, was passed, which required gun dealers, importers, and manufacturers to have a federal firearms license (Gray, 2018). Congress got the right to regulate the interstate selling of some shotguns in 1939 under the National Firearms Act.
The FFA was repealed and replaced by Gun Control Act of 1968 (Schultz, 2010). The revolutionary step was taken only after the assassination of President John Kennedy, Dr. Martin King Luther, Jr., and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Through the Act a number of restrictions were imposed such as, gun owners had to be at least the age of 25, certain guns were banned from importation, mentally ill, criminals and others were prohibited from the purchase of a gun, all guns were required to have a serial number, and a set of stricter regulations on licensing. In 1986 Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which aimed at protecting the owners of firearms, and it loosened the tight regulations which were in place. Along with this, it expanded GCA to prohibit civilian gun ownership.
After an attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 was introduced, which became a law under President Bill Clinton (Gray, 2018). It requires complete background checks before selling a gun. In the following year, in 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed, this was a temporary ban on assault weapons lasting from 1994 to 2004 (Schultz, 2010). There have been numerous attempts to renew it, but all have failed.
With the turn of the century, things went downhill. In 2003 an amendment was made to the ATF, which prohibited it from releasing any data regarding the purchase of guns by criminals, this was the Tiahrt Amendment. Followed in 2005, President Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms, which prevented anyone from naming gun manufactures in civil or federal suits, who were harmed by guns manufactured at their facilities (Gray, 2018).
Impacts of Lenient Gun Control
Though it is the right of every American citizen to own a gun under the Second Amendment to the constitution of U.S., though over time there have been some restrictions imposed on the right (Ameijde & Helinski, 2014). Despite these restrictions, it has not reduced the gun-related violence that is happening in the United States. If anything, it seems as if the violence is increasing day by day. Looking at the victims of the violent acts, one would think that the government would take a strict action against the preparators and bring about changes to the existing laws which would at least make it difficult to purchase a gun. This is necessary, as gun violence is having severe sociological impacts on the American society, some of which are discussed here.
Victims of Gun Violence
The United States has a history of gun violence, in the form of school and mass shootings (Klarevas, 2016). However, the turn of the century saw the vilest and vicious of these mass shootings. The country has witnessed more than 188 school shootings since 2000 (Erickson, 2018). The number of those dead in these shooting is stated to be around 200, with another 200 injured. However, this does not take into account the number of children and adults who will be scared for life as a result of witnessing their friends, students and colleagues die a few feet away from them. Children are not sent to schools so that they would return in a coffin. This is a growing rampant issue in the American society, which will leave it crippled for the coming years if corrective measures are not taken, as most of the shooters are students going to those schools. It is due to the slack gun controls that these students get an access to firearms.
It is simply not school shootings that is a growing concern for all. In 2017, Las Vegas saw one of the worst mass shooting. The shooting left 58 dead and more than 800 people injured. The shooting took place at a music festival, making it an easy target, and creating a havoc once the shooting started. This is one of the deadliest but not the only mass shooting, apart from those at schools, in American history. In fact, mass shootings have tripled in past few years (Dahmen, 2018).
Gun Culture
Gun violence has increased to such an extent in the United States, that people of all genders and age believe that to protect themselves, they need to carry a gun themselves. People have started to have the belief that if they carry a gun they will be better able to protect themselves and that it ensures their freedom. The individualistic view of people in some States can be linked to the ideas of individualism and liberalism, and to that of American national creed (Huntington, 1983). According to Huntington, the freedom of an individual is termed as liberalism, which is only retrained by freedom of other people. In the United States today, people feel the sense of freedom by carrying firearms, which would help protect them from others.
People have developed a perception, that carrying and owning guns would allow them to ensure their security. This is a perception which needs to be addressed and changed. Many people are of the view that the perpetrator in gun violence is not the firearm, rather it is the individual or group, who uses the firearms for such a violent act, such as mass shootings (Ameijde & Helinski, 2014). Carrying a gun and learning how to use it has become a norm in the American society. Guns are not seen as something harmful to the society, rather it is important for self-protection and the protection of those around them. This is the view in most of the states with lenient gun laws. They support the view by stating that a person would not look for a fight or threaten someone because anyone can carry a gun (Ameijde & Helinski, 2014).
Healthcare Issue
Firearm violence is a very costly issue for the public healthcare in the United States (Wintemute, 2014). Injuries from firearms are found to excessively affect the population of non-White, young males. This has resulted in the substantial individual as well as the societal burden. A study shows that from the year 2003 through 2013, 30,617 patients were admitted to hospitals as a result of some sort of a firearm injury. The annual rate of admissions was 10.1 patients, per 100,000 I.S. population. A total of 80 percent of the admissions were of individuals between the ages 15 to 44. The rate for men in comparison to women, was nine times higher, with the Black population having ten times the rate of White population. The most common firearm, which accounted for 70 percent of the injuries was a handgun, and with 60 percent of the admissions being as a result of assaults.
When it comes to the cost of taking care of these injuries and providing the necessary healthcare to the patients, the annual admission cost was around $622 million. Out of the total hospitalization for the firearm-related injuries, a quarter of them was uninsured, which totaled at a cost of $155 million per annum. This is a huge cost to the society, specifically at a time when the country is facing an increasing annual deficit. The country can spend the amount to address other social issues such as poverty, and education, rather than spending on something that can be avoided to some extent if not altogether.
Impact on Society at Large
The United States of America is the only developed nation in the world with such high rates of death caused by gun violence (Cook & Ludwig, 2000). It is not just crimes such as mass shootings which are a cause of gun-related deaths. In fact, there have been instances where people have died in accidental shooting as well. For instance, in 2014 a three years old girl shot and killed her two years old brother, with her father’s handgun. It was an untimed death for the child, and he would have been alive, had it not been for the gun lying around in the house.
Many children who have grown up in violent neighborhoods, for them the only way to protect themselves is through the use of guns. This results in a lack of social skills in the children, which affects their development and growth (Collins & Swoveland, 1996). This creates a sense of aggression and violence among the children, which they take with them into their adulthood, resulting in a community which is violent and does not rely on proper communication skills and interpersonal skills to resolve conflicts. All this results in creating a dysfunctional society, where everyone fears one another, and the only solution to the fear is carrying guns.
Students, teachers, and parents, whether directly related to any of the mass shooting or not are coming up with ways to counter the epidemic. Students who should be focusing on their personal lives are coming up with ways to barricade their classrooms in case of a shooting at their schools. Parents are looking for any sort of merchandise which would protect their children in case of a shooting. This is not the mindset that anyone should have in a free and developed nation.
A Need for Strict Gun Control Laws
The United States has come a long way from being a British colony when it required all its citizens to keep and bear arms. It is a free and developed nation today, where it does not make sense for every individual to bear or keep arms. There is a need to amend the right in the Constitution of America. Today it is doing more harm to the liberty and freedom of its own people, than any other epidemic or social issue. The society is an integration of many different parts, as is stated in the functionalist theory. If one function of the society does not work properly the others would feel its impact as well. And this is exactly what is happening with the lenient gun laws and policies.
The government is unable to bring about the mandatory change to the constitution to protect its own citizens. If this continues to happen, one can only imagine the consequences if every individual, despite their age, gender, criminal record or mental health started carrying a gun. Carrying a gun for the sake of protection should be the last resort. The gun laws are stricter in some developing nations than in the United States, and it has shown that as a result, these countries have witnessed a reduction in gun violence (Santaella-Tenorio, Cerdá, Villaveces, & Galea, 2016). Some of the steps taken in these countries include: a ban on certain types of firearms, such as automatic rifles, making it essential to have an extensive background check system, and requiring the people to have permits and licenses for buying firearms.
If the fact that every day on an average 30 fatally shot in the United States, is not enough for enforcing strict gun laws and revising the gun policies in the country, then nothing will. Organizations all over the country have started to boycott National Rifle Association and have placed restrictions on firearm sales, however, none of this would be of any use if the executive and legislative branch of the government does not take a stand and push politicians to revise the existing rights of individuals to carry arms without any license. Protection of the citizens is the duty of the society as the whole, it is not something that can be achieved on an individual level. In fact, it is the responsibility of the government towards its citizens to protect its people. If the government can properly protect its citizens, there will be no need for individuals to bear or keep arms.
One study in 2015 showed that only 20 percent of the perpetrators were mentally ill, thus, those individuals who say that the issue is not with keeping arms, but with the people who carry out such heinous acts, does not stand true (Stone, 2015). The perpetrator is firearms and the open and easy access to them. If people did not have such easy access to guns it would have been very difficult to carry out suicides and homicide, with guns at least. The issue is not about banning guns from every sphere of life but limiting the access of guns to every individual in the country.
Conclusion
The seventeen children who died on February 14, 2018, did not leave their homes in the morning never to return, and their parents did not send them in uniforms to receive them in coffins. This was not the first incident where a student went into the school and shot at other students so mercilessly, and it will not be the last one either unless strict measures are taken to regulate ownership of guns. It is the responsibility of the government to reinforce reforms in gun laws to make sure that any future mass shootings are stopped and to make schools a safe haven for children, rather than a slaughterhouse. Gun violence is directly associated with the slack gun laws in the United States. It might be a lucrative business for many, but nothing is more precious and important than the youth of the nation, which is going to be its future. This is a social issue which can result in splitting the country into two - those who support it and those who are against the slack gun policies – if timely measures are not taken. The gun culture prevailing in the United States need to go through a reformation, as this is not a culture which should be celebrated or promoted. It is harmful not only to others but also for those who carry and possess them. Though this is not something which can be changed overnight, as it has become part of the mainstream culture, it is necessary to take steps to slowly change the culture.
Reflection
While reading about gun laws and the continuing gun violence in America in particular, and the world in general, I came to realize that some of the developing nations such as Brazil, and even Pakistan, which is termed to be one of the country's worst hit by terrorism. This was a very alarming revelation for me. If such countries have lower death rates as a result of gun violence, why does the United States a world power and a developed nation have such a bad condition? I believe the answer to this is very simple, they have stricter laws when it comes to keeping firearms.
Amending or passing a law might not be so easy, specifically under the Constitution of America, but the current social issue that the country is going through needs to revise these laws and think what it values more, the lives of its citizens at large or the views and freedom to keep firearms of a few. We as a nation have come a long way from 1791 when the Second Amendment was passed. I believe times have changed, and as a result, there is a growing need for the laws to be reviewed and revised. I am not asking to take away anyone's right to protect themselves, I simply believe there is a need for laws and regulations to save anyone of us from becoming the next victim of a school shootout.
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