Gun Control in America

Recent events have re-opened the debate for stricter restrictions on gun control in America. The Government has constantly in battles with the biggest pro-gun rallying organisation, the NRA in attempts to tighten gun control. The second amendment of the constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. However, following the recent shooting in the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut has led to protests at the NRA headquarters near Washington DC. On top of this the White house has also spoken out against guns. Vice President Joseph Biden is considering measures that would require universal background checks for gun buyers and track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database.

While the shootings in Sandy Hook has been the catalyst for these talks mass shootings is not a new problem in America. In reality the problem stems much deeper. Thirty-four Americans are killed every day by firearms. Each year, on average, 100,000 Americans are shot with a gun. Of these, over 31,000 are fatalities, 11,000 of them murders and 18,000 suicides. While the Sandy Hook shootings was the worst of the mass shootings this year, there was 15 more mass shootings in America in 2012. They are:

1. February 22, 2012—Five people were killed in at a Korean health spa in Norcross, Georgia, when a man opened fire inside the facility in an act suspected to be related to domestic violence.
2. February 26, 2012—Multiple gunmen began firing into a nightclub crown in Jackson, Tennessee, killing one person and injuring 20 others.
3. February 27, 2012—Three students at Chardon High School in rural Ohio were killed when a classmate opened fire.
4. March 8, 2012—Two people were killed and seven wounded at a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when a gunman entered the hospital with two semiautomatic handguns and began firing.
5. March 31, 2012—A gunman opened fire on a crowd of mourners at a North Miami, Florida, funeral home, killing two people and injuring 12 others.
6. April 2, 2012—A 43-year-old former student at Oikos University in Oakland, California, walked into his former school and killed seven people, “execution-style.” Three people were wounded.
7. April 6, 2012—Two men went on a deadly shooting spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shooting black men at random in an apparently racially motivated attack. Three men died and two were wounded.
8. May 29, 2012—A man in Seattle, Washington, opened fire in a coffee shop and killed five people and then himself.
9. July 9, 2012—At a soccer tournament in Wilmington, Delaware, three people were killed, including a 16-year-old player and the event organizer, when multiple gunmen began firing shots, apparently targeting the organizer.
10. July 20, 2012—James Holmes enters a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opens fire with a semi-automatic weapon; twelve people are killed and fifty-eight are wounded.
11.  August 5, 2012—A white supremacist and former Army veteran shot six people to death inside a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before killing himself.
12. August 14, 2012—Three people were killed at Texas A&M University when a 35-year-old man went on a shooting rampage; one of the dead was a police officer.
13. September 27, 2012—A 36-year-old man who had just been laid off from Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota, entered his former workplace and shot five people to death, and wounded three others before killing himself.
14.  October 21, 2012—45-year-old Radcliffe Frankin Haughton shot three women to death, including his wife, Zina Haughton, and injured four others at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before killing himself
15. December 11, 2012—A 22-year-old began shooting at random at a mall near Portland, Oregon, killing two people and then himself.
16.  December 14, 2012—Adam Lanza murders a reported twenty-six people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, including twenty children, before killing himself.

This highlights that the problem is bigger than any one event. There must be some action taken to try to help prevent such atrocities happening in the future. The NRA feels that the guns aren’t the problem and that the problem lies with the mentally unstable using them. But the guns ended up in their hands due the general availability of guns. You can go into Walmart and buy assault rifles along with your weekly grocery shop. There seems to be something wrong with that picture. But even some members of the NRA are finally identifying with this as Virginia Senator Mark Warner who has been awarded the NRA's highest member rating, has said “enough is enough.  We all need to come to the table and end up with appropriate restriction.” A Gallup poll released recently showed that 58 per cent of Americans now support new gun-control laws, up from 43 per cent in 2011. It’s good to see such a jump but these restrictions need to be put in place soon to help prevent such events happening in the future.

The NRA has to realise that their proposed solution of people carrying more firearms for protection is not the way forward. However, this just doesn’t make sense to me you don’t combat an addiction with more heroin, Alcoholism with more drink so why would you try to combat shootings with more guns? They propose that there should be armed guards in all schools. Really what needs to be done is to impose stricter regulations on the purchasing of guns. An in-depth background check for each potential buyer including a mental health evaluation should be imposed. As proposed by the vice president there should be more diligent tracking on the movement and sale of weapons through a national database. These restrictions along with others could help to prevent the guns falling into the wrong hands. Hopefully some good can come from the Sandy Hook shootings in the form of new gun laws to help to prevent such mass shootings from happening again in the future. The time for change is now.

Cian Kiely – Marketing Advisor