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The debate over anti-gun laws has become a highly controversial and widely deliberated topic in multiple countries worldwide in the last few years. With the occurrence of mass shootings and gun violence on the rise, how could it not? The more restrictions there are on the consumption and inadequate use of guns in the general public the lower the rates of gun violence will be. The American Government could take some pointers from the Brazilian Government on this topic in particular. School shootings and mass shootings in general in America have become such a regular occurrence, that people have forgotten the magnitude of their impact.
It is a true statement that stricter gun regulation will result in lower death rates across America. Incidents such as school shootings, accidental shootings, and domestic violence shootings, will greatly decrease with the execution of stricter gun control laws. On the matter of domestic violence shootings, there are nearly one million women alive today who have been shot or shot at by their partner and every sixteen hours a woman in the United States is fatally shot by their current or past romantic partner. This number of women in the United States is an incredibly high number, compared to many countries around the world. For example, in Canada, the number of deaths is significantly lower, “approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner”. This could easily be reduced if the abusive or unstable partner didn’t have access to a firearm.
Fifty-eight percent of American adults surveyed reported that they or someone they care about have experienced some type of gun violence in their lifetimes (SurveyUSA Market Research Study, 2018). This is an absurdly large amount of people. These people could be spared the trauma by simply having stricter regulations when it comes to firearms. Every year there are three million American children who witness gun violence themselves. This type of experience can be traumatic for the child. Trauma can result in deteriorating mental health as they begin to age and develop while trying to figure out the world. Firearms are the second leading cause of death in children every year in the United States. Research over the last five years has shown that stricter gun laws lead to fewer child-related shootings and deaths. Using a points system, it was found that with every ten-point increase in firearm legislation, there was a four percent decrease in pediatric mortalities due to firearms (Bortz, K., & Carter, P., M.D., 2019).
However, the gun bans in Brazil are effectively decreasing mortality rates by the day. In 2003, it was reported that 70 percent of homicides were committed by the use of firearms in Brazil. In late 2003, a gun law was passed restricting gun purchasers to be 25 and older, have proof of a steady job and residence, have no evidence of criminal history, have gun training, and pass a psychological test. In 2004, the new gun law seemed to be effective as gun-related homicides decreased by 8.9 percent from 2003 to 2004. The total number of the decreased homicides is 3,200 between the previous year and 2004. Beginning in the first months of 2004, the past increase in firearm homicides came to a stop; firearm homicides actually decreased by 8.2 percent from 2003. Values were 15.4 percent lower than expected levels for the same period.
National legislation inflicted new penalties, including fines and tougher prison sentences for people in violation of these laws. In July 2004, additional measures took place, including a countrywide voluntary disarmament program. These programs are still going on to this day. The United States should conduct something similar to these laws and regulations in an effort to lower gun violence crimes.
The idea of having stricter regulations with firearms isn’t as far-fetched as some would believe. The United States has a mass shooting rate of about six times the amount of twenty-four other global comparisons to similar countries. The correlation between gun ownership and mass shootings increases due to the easy access for everyone, including dangerous people who will be the gunmen in these mass shootings. In a study done for the British Medical Journal it was found that with every ten-unit increase in permissiveness in each state when it comes to regulating firearms, there was an eleven-and-a-half percent higher mass shooting rate. With a ten percent increase in gun ownership, there was a thirty-five-point one percent increase in mass shootings.
In a survey done by a group of researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health and John Hopkins School of Medicine for the American Journal of Public Health, it was found that a majority of Americans, both gun owners and non-gun owners, believe stricter regulations are necessary. The researchers proposed twenty-four regulations and of the twenty-four there were twenty-three with a majority vote in favor of these regulations from both groups. It has been shown that the states with more firearm regulations experience fewer annual mass shootings compared to those that have more permissive gun laws. Over the course of seventeen years, there has been a positive correlation in the number of mass shootings decreasing when states adopted stricter gun regulations. The idea of regulating firearms is supported by both gun owners and non-gun owners, so what’s to keep from implementing firearm regulations into the law?
Many pro-gun, anti-regulation, gun owners believe that they have the right to collect guns or that gun regulations will leave them helpless in the face of danger. Recently there was a mother whose home was invaded by armed robbers. The robbers attacked the woman’s husband and grabbed her child. This woman then ran to her room to grab her AR-15 that she kept in there to then shoot the armed robbers as they ran out of her back door. Stories like these are often what is displayed on the news as the only outcome of a situation like this. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to a regular civilian helping with a dangerous situation, the civilian is more likely to cause harm to innocent bystanders rather than stop the danger. The woman said she only clipped the robber with her shot fired. This could easily have missed the target hitting nothing or hitting one of her family members.
Overall the negative impacts caused by unregulated or loosely regulated firearms will always outweigh the rare benefits that come from them. The lives of American citizens should be the top priority of a nation and by creating more regulated gun laws there is the potential to relieve these gun-related tragedies that occur so often due to the lack of regulations. With regulations, it's possible to prevent firearms from getting into the hands of bad people or at least make it more unlikely for that to occur. Whether someone would rather prioritize their gun collection over the lives of other living humans will always be a part of that person’s identity.
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