Causes Of Gun Violence In America

Every day in America, 309 people are shot. Of those shot, 93 die. Of those killed, 32 are murdered (Brady Campaign). When facts such as these are ignored, it’s hard to remember that these numbers aren’t considered normal everywhere else. When compared to 22 other high-income nations, such as Germany, Australia, and Canada, researchers with The American Journal of Medicine found that the gun deaths on US soil account for 82% of all the gun deaths in these countries combined. In other words, 82 out of 100 deaths caused by gun violence in 23 of the wealthiest, most developed nations in the world occur in the United States (Preidt). Whether you label this a public health problem or a mental health problem, a legal problem or a public safety problem,
Gary Younge, a researcher and author of, “Another Day in the Death of America” points to inequality as one of the biggest drivers behind fatal shootings. Without serious legislative attempts to tackle the causes of gun deaths in America, people begin looking for excuses instead (Salon). “The blame shifts from a societal to an individual level”, focusing in on gang-culture and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. To completely keep blame away from society though would go against many of the very basic definitions of government, leading to the necessity of comprehensive policy options addressing this
As seen in other countries, enacting legislation to ban most firearms in our country could help solve the issue (the government could buy them back, increase the scrutiny of the gun manufacturing industry, etc.). The access to firearms would go down, and in turn, one could predict that gun violence would go down as well. On the other hand, the problem could also be addressed in a more indirect way. Instead of focusing on the guns themselves, focus on other possible underlying causes such as concentration of poverty, mental illness, and inequality. Additionally, as discussed above, the complexities and ambiguity of the US legal system absolutely contribute to the difficulties we have with gun control. Reform this system (by adopting one standard of scrutiny, forcing courts to define the scope of the Second Amendment, etc.) and laws could become more black and white. The problem with the options described here, and many others politicians and researchers have proposed, is the almost-guaranteed pushback. No solution will ever make everyone happy, but in order to work, it does need a