Family and friends can be one of the most important things in people’s lives. If you could help keep them safe would you do it? Even though you can’t keep them one hundred percent safe there is a way to increase their safety from guns. You have a chance to make America safer than it has been in a long time. Support background checks on criminals and people with destructive tendencies. Background checks on gun purchases can help reduce gun related deaths and make it harder for future shooters to purchase guns. Although there are other ways to reduce mass shootings, background checks are the most effective.
Background checks have been in the conversation of reducing mass shootings but people against these checks have said that they don’t actually make America safer. This is not true. A scholarly article proves this wrong. Their results confirm that background checks reduce homicide shootings and suicide deaths(from guns). “More extensive background checks prior to gun purchase are mostly associated with reductions in firearm homicide and suicide deaths” (Sen, Bisakha and Panjamapirom). Not only does background checks reduce mass homicide shootings, it also reduces suicide deaths.
It’s a 2 in 1 deal. Suicides constantly affect families just like mass shooting deaths. If we choose to have background checks but feel nothing has changed, there will be a change if we go back to having no checks. “There is strong evidence to support the idea that the repeal of Missouri’s handgun purchase licensing law contributed to dozens of additional murders in Missouri each year since the law was changed”(Volsky). This quote is saying that Missouri changed their law on owning a license to own a handgun, and when that happened? They had an increase in murders over the next few years.
America needs to look at how other countries with a similar population to see how to make the US safer. “Britain has some of the strictest gun regulations in the world and a mass shooting fatality rate of a mere . 07 per 100,000 people”(Palazzolo and Flynn). Because Great Britain has such strong gun restrictions, they have very few mass shootings. Even though America would think that it would be unconstitutional, but the point of the Constitution is to have a country where people can be happy and successful.
How can anyone be happy with all these shootings happening. On average, mass killings involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the US, while school shootings occur on average monthly”(Towers). This needs to change. To many people are getting hurt or killed over something that can be prevented. People against background checks say that they are unnecessary because there is no way to stop the shooters from getting guns from the black market. They are right. There is no guarantee that shooters won’t be able to get a gun. But background checks can help prevent them from getting them.
State laws prohibiting high-risk groups — perpetrators of domestic violence, violent misdemeanants and the severely mentally ill — from possessing firearms have been shown to reduce violence. One of my studies found that a number of state laws prohibiting individuals under a domestic violence restraining order from owning guns produced an overall 19 percent reduction in intimate partner homicides. “(Sargent). 19 percent is a whole lot better than 0 percent. The author was asked even if we do close the loophole, won’t criminals simply get guns in another way, he responded by saying “Quite often not.
Certainly some will find ways to get guns even with background checks. But the studies show that state universal background checks, and state laws that prohibit criminals and other high risk groups from purchasing guns, reduce gun availability of guns to high risk groups”(Sargent). People shouldn’t be too worried about criminals getting guns from the black market if background checks were put into place. The laws in place now are doing nothing but causing more problems. There are specific zones in the United States that are called “gun-free” zones that keep any and all guns out of these zones.
Gun-free zones are unnecessary and just a waste of government time and money. “Every public mass shooting since 1950, except for two, has occurred in a gun-free zone”(Pratt). Gun-free zones actually do the opposite of what they are supposed to do. They put people in danger when they shouldn’t be. Background checks have been proven to help. Laws in place right now should be taken away and replaced with background checks because it has been proven to help the United States. But not everything is perfect. Background checks could have guns taken away from previous gun owners.
Also, there would be a long process to buy a gun that could get responsible gun owners upset about background checks. Gun owners will argue that it is against the second amendment(The Right to Bear Arms). They will say that it is against the amendment because not everyone will have the right to bear arms because the government feels certain people are not safe to own one. Background checks are not the only way to reduce mass shootings. Studies have shown that the media has a big influence on events. “Aside from the act itself, there is no greater aim for the mass killer than to see his own grievances broadcast far and wide.
Many shooters directly cite the words of prior killers as inspiration”(Schulman). If the media where to watch what they broadcast to only point out the facts. Even though most people want to hear it all, it could be a way to reduce ‘copy cats’. This will never happen. There will never be enough people to agree to this because too many people would agree that that is news that needs to be spread across the nation. Another reason this won’t happen is because when this news is released to the public, people around the nation donate money to that certain area to help.
Since schools are constantly targeted by shooters, if there were more people with guns in schools, mass shootings would be reduced greatly as well. “Schools are a prime target for gunmen. An average of two shootings occurred in K-12 schools in the U. S. each month from 2013 to 2014… “(Sanburn, Frizell, Alter, Sifferlin). If more cops had guns in schools, people might feel safer. It would also create jobs which is another problem America has, but people might be strongly against this because a shooter could be dressed as a cop and have a gun and no questions will be asked.
The problem with having guns in the school is the shooter could just walk in wearing the same or similar uniform the school cop is wearing and get to the middle of the school undetected. No one is going to stop a police officer because they bring safety. Another problem is students and parents still might not feel any safer and maybe even more terrified knowing there are deadly weapons in their school. Another way that we could reduce shootings in the US is to make the gun manufactures and sellers partly responsible for the mass shootings.
The idea is that making gun companies accountable for shootings would create financial incentives to increase safety precautions and monitor distribution, similar to how drug companies are incentivized to ensure the safety of their products”(Sanburn, Frizell, Alter, Sifferlin). If gun manufactures and sellers were made partly responsible, there could be less shootings because if word got out that they sold weapons to a mass shooter, their company could lose customers and go out of business. It is really hard to determine if the seller could tell that the future shooter seemed dangerous.
Anyone can act nice and innocent at first glance. If we made the sellers and manufactures partly responsible, people could lose their job, or go to jail for actually doing their job which is to sell guns. No one can predict what another person will do so there is really no point to trying and making the sellers responsible. But if background checks were put into place, then sellers/manufactures can be held partly responsible for selling a gun to a person who didn’t pass the check. America is living in fear.
The rest of the world doesn’t have this problem as bad as America does. It’s time for a change. Background checks will bring that positive change that the United States of America is in dire need of. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. That is what America is doing right now. The government thinks they are fixing the problem, but it hasn’t. There are still too many mass shootings that can be prevented if background checks were put into place. Make America safer. Support background checks.
