How Many More?

Hello all, this post is going to be quite a bit different from my previous posts as it’s not going to focus on my exchange, but rather a topic I have felt very passionate and angry about for a while now, gun control in the US. I know this is a topic we’re all sick of talking about, but I feel like I really just cannot stay quiet about this. In the wake of two more mass shootings in just the past week, one in Rancho Tehama, Northern California (part of which occurred at an elementary school) , which left 5 dead and 10 injured and the other in Sutherland Springs Texas that left 26 dead, I have been finding myself reaching new levels of anger and anguish over the lives that are being lost every single day unnecessarily.

I will never forget the day I learned just how prevalent guns were in America and how palpable the looming threat of gun violence is to each and every American resident. I was five years old, driving to the American Girl doll store in Los Angeles with my mother. We were about half an hour away when our gas light came on and we got off the freeway to look for a gas station. After driving around for about another half hour, thinking we were going to break down in the middle of nowhere, we finally found one. Right before my mother could pull in to fill up the tank, after we patiently waited in line for our turn, a big truck came in and cut us off, stealing our spot. I remember turning to my mother then and asking why she didn’t blow her horn as this driver was obviously being incredibly inconsiderate and I assumed that was the natural thing to do. She turned to me and said: “Because you never know who has a gun.” This memory has never left me, it is what I best remember about that day. That day I spent at a place that I was so excited to go to, the most exciting place five year old Grace could imagine going to, has been overshadowed in my memories by eight words. That moment and those words have stayed with me because they exemplify the absolute absurdity of gun violence in America. The fact that doing as little as blowing your horn at a driver who’s in the wrong is grounds enough for you to fear being shot is horrifying. The reality is though that I’m lucky, I got to learn about gun violence in a situation in which no one was hurt. I am lucky I didn’t learn about it from being, or from one of my siblings, or cousins being one of the 46 children or teens shot every day in America (an average of 17,012 are shot each year). I am lucky I didn’t learn about it from one of my parents being one of the 269 adults shot every day (an average of 97,982 are shot each year). Every day people are injured or killed because of guns that are all too easy to obtain.

This brings me to my next point, the absolute ridiculousness that is American laws. The lack of control exercised in the US when it comes to purchasing firearms is so unbelievably lax it would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. It’s estimated that 40% of guns sold each year in the US are done in “no questions asked” transactions in which proper background checks aren’t conducted. These transactions occur more often at gun shows and online where background checks aren’t required. Now, for context on exactly how many guns that is consider these numbers. On average under Obama’s presidency (side-note: Obama was one of, if not the most, passionate advocate of gun control in American Presidential history) 52,600 guns were purchased a day. That’s 19,199,000 guns a year. 153,592,000 in the eight year span of his presidency. Now, if 40% of those guns were purchased in a “no questions asked transaction” that means 61,436,800 guns were purchased over the past eight years without a background check. These transactions potentially put guns into the hands of domestic abusers, convicted felons, fugitives from justice and other who should not have access to these guns. Furthermore though, those 92,155,200 guns sold with a background check still unfortunately have disappointingly high chances of ending up in potentially deathly situations.

Currently federal background checks fail to account for many aspects of a persons character that should disqualify them from being able to obtain a gun. As of now the background check process works like this: when someone wants to obtain a firearm the seller has to alert the FBI who conduct a criminal background check looking at whether the buyer has any past felony convictions, a history of being domestically abusive, has a dangerous mental illness that causes them to pose a risk to themselves or others or is a fugitive among other checks for past criminal activity. 3,000,000 guns sales have been blocked by these background checks since, 1994 and they work when implemented properly at helping keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them. Sadly though I do not believe they go far enough. What these background checks don’t do though is check: who else is living in the home with the gun or may have access to it (the person who bought the gun and underwent a background check may not be the only one with access to it), whether the purchaser has a history of posting or sharing potentially alarming content (example: Dylann Roof who had a blog on which he spewed violent anti-black, white-supremacist hate speech prior to killing 9 black worshippers in a Church), require a psych evaluation to determine potentially undiagnosed mental illnesses that could lead to the buyer being a risk to themselves or others. On average 24,737 people attempt suicide each year using a gun, the vast majority of whom succeed. Furthermore, people with mental disorders that incapacitate their abilities to think clearly and rationally about their choices, such as those with schizophrenia or various other disorders that result in psychosis, are not consistently blocked from purchasing firearms. This is a threat to the safety of both the person living with a psychotic disorder and those around them, since when treated incorrectly psychotic disorders can lead to violent outbursts that are nearly impossible to stop. Lastly, we need to require mandatory training to ensure people know how to use their gun as roughly 17,000 people are shot unintentionally each year.

It is not enough to investigate only past transgressions, we must also be proactive in attempting to prevent future ones. If we took the time to actively make a personalized judgement call based on the character of the person attempting to purchase a gun and worked to ensure that guns were going not only to responsible people, who know how to operate their firearm safely, but secure households, so many lives could be saved. Guns are not inherently evil and bad. For those who use them responsibly for sport or hunting they can be a source of recreation and enjoyment, a necessary tool even in keeping families healthy. The second amendment exists for a reason and guns will always be a part of American culture, but the reality is that the second amendment was written 228 years ago on the heels of war and when guns were far less prevalent and deadly. The reality is we didn’t have machine guns when the second amendment was written and now we do. The reality is handguns were far less powerful when the second amendment was written, and today they’re used in the majority of homicides in the US. The reality is American culture has changed, the world has changed, technology has changed, and it’s time our policies concerning guns do too. We need to say enough is enough. We need to stand up to the NRA, an organization estimated to have only 3 million members (that’s less than 0.01% of the US population), whose own member’s when polled overwhelmingly support gun control in some form when the word’s gun control are removed from the question “Do you support gun control?”, citing that measures such as universal background checks are simply common sense (http://www.cc.com/video-clips/xzgbgu/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-nra-members-weigh-in-on-gun-control?xrs=synd_FBPAGE_20160530_479294612_The%20Daily%20Show_Video%20with%20Link&linkId=24991597).

91% percent of Americans, 82% of gun owners, and 72% of NRA members support greater gun control, so why hasn’t it happened? Propaganda and manipulation. The lack of common sense gun control in the US is not reflective of the true opinions of the majority of Americans, but rather of a select clique in the NRA who control the messaging reaching pro-gun voters. If someone who is pro-gun hears that liberals are trying to steal their guns, from an organization as recognized and powerful as the NRA they go into panic mode and are willing to over compensate with extreme pro-gun policies. The NRA propaganda machine is well oiled and has perfected the art of manipulating voters and politicians into falling in line with its agenda. This is what I find most frustrating about American gun politics. The control exerted by a very small portion of the population that supports very liberal gun-control and the manipulation said group has perfected. This is so frustrating to me because it stands against the founding principal of America, democracy. The job of the government is to represent the people, so I must ask, if 91% of people support universal background checks how is it true to American principals not to have them?

Gun culture in America is complex. Those who support gun rights will defend them fiercely (while armed). Those who oppose them will never back down on the issue. So, tonight I just have one more question. How many more? How many more children have to die? How many more have to have their lives derailed? How many more have to go through the hurt and pain associated with losing a loved one? How many more times can we ask “How do we end this?” following a mass shooting? In 2016 the US experienced more mass shootings than it did days. My entire body goes cold each time I read a new headline about another shooting, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of learning of preventable tragedies. I’m not going to pretend I can answer these questions, I’m an 18 year old student. I do feel frustrated though that so much of what I believe to be common sense, banning silencers, instituting universal background checks, ensuring mandatory gun training, appear to be common sense beliefs among many of my fellow Americans yet these actions appear to be impossible to institute. I am so tired, and frustrated, and so deeply sad. So to finish tonight I will simply ask one more time, how many more?

Sources/More info:

http://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/Brady-Campaign-5Year-Gun-Deaths-Injuries-Stats_June2017.pdf

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7279/record-number-guns-sold-2016-aaron-bandler#

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/5/16430684/nra-congress-money-no

https://www.bradycampaign.org/our-impact/campaigns/background-checks

https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/pages/welcome.aspx

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts