The U.S. experienced its deadliest mass shooting in modern history last weekend when a gunman killed 49 people in an Orlando night club, yet anyone that mentions tighter guns control laws still gets heckled as un-American. An honest gun control conversation is long overdue.
We have all seen the footage of recent shootings, from Columbine and the Aurora theatre in Colorado, to Sandy Hook Elementary School and now Orlando. Although a few of the shootings had links to terrorism, the vast majority of these shootings have been Americans killing random strangers with guns purchased legally.
Each time a mass shooting happens, gun advocates argue that we only need enforcement of existing laws, not any new laws. Some even argue for less restrictive gun laws so more people can buy and carry guns to help stop mass shootings.
The United States is already the country with more guns per capita than any other country in the world. In total, Americans own more than 300,000,000 guns. That is nearly one for every man, woman, and child in the country. And in the U.S., there are more places to buy a gun than there are Starbucks in all the world combined.
Some argue that gun ownership is one of America’s most cherished rights, one that helped win our war for independence and is, therefore, an inalienable birthright of Americans. The Second Amendment, they argue, is so sacred it is second only to the freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment.
From the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, gun laws in the United States were wide open for just about anyone to buy a gun. The U.S. was, after all, the land of farmers, ranchers, cowboys, and frontiersmen living off the land and protecting themselves from animals and bandits. Hunting was a way of life across the country.
As more people moved into large metropolitan areas in cities, guns became a growing concern. In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed gun laws to curb the use of 1930s gangster-style weapons, including machines guns, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and gadget guns like those hidden in walking canes.
It wasn’t until after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy that tougher new laws were passed. The 1968 Gun Control Act initiated gun sales licenses, restricted interstate gun sales, eliminated mail order gun sales, and also restricted some groups of people from purchases, including felons, drug users, and mentally incompetent buyers. Since then, new laws including assault weapons bans, background checks, waiting periods, and limitations on carrying unloaded guns in public have been passed in various states.
But still, the number of people killed by guns has increased in recent decades. From 2005 to 2015, an average of more than 30,000 people died each year from gun shootings. During that period, 71 people in the U.S. were killed by terrorism, while over 300,000 were killed in non-terrorist gun shootings.
Mass shootings also seem to be an American thing. Since 1997, there have been 51 mass shootings in the U.S. where 4 or more people were killed, compared to only 3 in Germany, 3 in Switzerland, and 1 in England. Granted that those countries have less guns per capita, but they also have much stricter gun laws. The countries with the next two highest number of guns per capita after the US are Yemen and Bosnia; not good company to keep.
In the wake of recent shootings, gun control advocates are now pushing for more federal and state laws to curb these incidents. Mandatory background checks are still not universally required in all states. Assault weapons like AR15s are still available. And individuals on the no-fly list are not restricted from buying guns. Those seem like easy loopholes to close, yet no proposals to close them have passed in recent years.
A more comprehensive approach to gun ownership should be debated in depth, with real facts, and without partisan politics. Guns kill Democrats, Republicans, and non-political people just the same. Guns kill kids. Even more troubling is when kids with guns kill kids.
Americans should not tolerate gun deaths to the tune of over 80 deaths per day, which exceeds the annual deaths from heart disease, Parkinson’s, and diabetes. But just watch the news and you will hear the all too common refrain that we do not need new laws.
Obviously something needs to change. Our gun culture is killing people everyday. We are more than 4,200 times more likely to die from a lone gun man than an armed terrorist.
And let’s not simply fall back on the Second Amendment to defend the status quo. Guns are a national health issue that must be addressed. Like cancer. Like Alzheimer’s. Like mental health issues.
We should expect a safer future our kids.
The real conversation about smart gun control should start now.