Gun Violence: Is there a solution?

A public health crisis of gun violence plagues the US and the rest of the world has the answer
By K Tyler Allred

Synopsis
Currently in the United States we have an issue of not extensively researching a problem before we come to
a conclusion. In public education many are not taught how to think critically or how to analyze large amounts of
data. Conclusions are often drawn with only a vague understanding and this can lead to a negative and misleading
public opinion leaving very important issues unhandled. The issue of gun violence is too important for brief
research and presenting a possibly misleading report on such a polarizing issue.

“The US tops the list of countries with the most guns, owning
about half the world’s guns while making up only 5% of the world
population.” -Three percent of the population own half of the civilian guns in the US by
Youyou Zhou

The problem
The US has an estimated 316 million guns, about one gun for each of America’s 320
million people. America's passion for guns: ownership and violence by the numbers by Tom
McCarthy states, “[The US] suffers mass shootings at more than 11 times the rate of any other
developed country.” The US also has more gun related homicides than the majority of the world
with the exception of almost all South American and Central American countries, which have far
more homicides than the whole world, but surprisingly less mass shootings still than the US. As
talked about in How US gun culture compares with the world in five charts by Kara Fox.
In contrast, a gun advocate source argues that the US is not the developed world leader
in mass shootings and that we are comparable in rate to many European countries. As stated in
their editorial Sorry, Despite Gun-Control Advocates' Claims, U.S. Isn't The Worst Country For
Mass Shootings. Looking at their presented statistics they state that the US has less deaths per
million compared to Europe and less frequency of shootings compared to Europe. This is
misdirection, because they are looking at the continent as a whole not the individual countries.
The article says that there were more casualties per capita from mass public shootings in EU than
US from 2009-15. Citing the Crime Prevention Research Center, the US had 199 fatalities during
this time and the Entire EU had 230. Which breaks down to 0.45 fatalities per million in the EU
and 0.62 fatalities per million in the US. Which seems to not correlate directly with their claim
but if you notice, the report was previously talking about all of Europe and then switched over to
comparing just the European Union to the US. These statistics are not conclusive and still
demonstrate that the US has a serious problem. Note that the Crime Prevention Research Center
is owned and operated by John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime" and "The Bias Against
Guns." Numbers can be skewed on the matter based on political biases but as you will find in
this report, there is a direct correlation between the quantity of guns in a society and the
incidence of gun violence.
America's gun culture in 10 charts

US Research On Gun Violence?

Now, when looking at both political sides of the argument we have some conflicting
numbers. Some do not always add up and some counter the other sides’ statistics. Which leads to
a continually surfacing issue of why there is a lack of research on gun control, gun violence, and
any death related to the matter. NRA-backed legislation has made it illegal to conduct research
on these matters for many government funded organizations and has cut off almost all funding
related to the matter. Further, legislation has made it hard for any party outside of NRA-backed
organizations to gain access to any collected data on the matter according to Michael Hiltzik in
The NRA has blocked gun violence research for 20 years. Let's end its stranglehold on science.

“Keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an
increased risk of homicide … by a family member or intimate acquaintance.” -
Arthur L. Kellermann - as quoted in The NRA has blocked gun violence research for 20 years.
Let's end its stranglehold on science.
 Hilztik enlightens us that, in 1996 the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC
Davis concluded that having a gun in a home led to more violence. Shortly after, in 1996 the
Dickey amendment was passed and took 1.5 million funding dollars from the VPRP, among
other large researchers, and barred the CDC from using funds to “advocate or promote gun
control.” Cutting 2.6 million from the CDC program going forward, the exact amount used the
previous year on gun research. Although the language of the law was vague on it being illegal,
congress continued to cut research funding to the CDC and other researchers until they stopped
all research, even the basic collection of data.
Next, in 2003, Congress passed a bill that effectively stopped the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, from sharing information. Continuing the
conversation in MISFIRES in the Gun Control Debate,Meghan Rosenstates, “The Tiahrt
amendment was the first in a series of provisions that drastically limited the agency’s ability to
share its crime gun data—no giving it to researchers, no making it public, no handing it over
under Freedom of Information Act requests (the public’s channel for tapping into information
from the federal government).” She then adds, there were a continuing series of bills passed that
further cut into funding and the sharing of any collected data across all organizations. Legislation
effectively blocked gun violence research in the US for now more than 20 years.
Rosen also goes into detail about mental illness. Specifically, mental illness is not the
big problem with gun violence, it is regular people who have access to guns; as is often argued in
the media.

People with mental illness

committed fewer than
5 Percent
of U.S. gun killings
between 2001 and 2010.
- Meghan Rosen
What If We Treated Gun Violence Like A Public Health Crisis? By ALISON KODJAK

Money Behind The Violence

Louis Jacobson in his article, Counting up how much the NRA spends on campaigns and
lobbying, presents all the estimated funding that the NRA has provided for their cause. The NRA
has donated an estimated 4.23 million dollars to current members of congress back to 1996. A
large number that is eclipsed by the 144.3 million they have spent and donated on campaigns for
people who support their legislation and attack ads against those who are for gun control. Then,
the NRA spent a cumulative 45.9 million on federal lobbying with a total of 203.2 million on
political activities since 1998. The NRA are the leading spender on gun-advocating media. Now
what does the NRA get in return? “The organization's overall revenue, which includes
membership dues, program fees and other contributions, has boomed in recent years – rising to
nearly $350 million in 2013.” States Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken in THE MONEY
POWERING THE NRA. This does not include individual donations which are nearly $85 million
in just the past decade. Ellis and Hicken point out, “[a]fter the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting,
donations to this political action committee surged as gun owners worried that their rights to buy
and own guns were at risk.” As the NRA pushes during every gun violence incidence. Finally,
the NRA PAC is highly supported and upheld by large donations from gun manufacturers who
expect the NRA to lobby against any form of gun control. Directly paying congress to continue
growth of their business.
“in 71% of the incidents, the weapons used in mass shootings were legally and
directly accessible to the killers.” - Frederic Lemieux

Back to the problem

It is still unclear in comparisons between countries who has the most gun violence, but
when you directly compare the U.S. to similar countries like Canada and the UK the U.S. has
about a 4.7 homicide rate per 100,000 to Britain's 1 per 100,000. According to Michel Martin in
the article Could Finland Teach The U.S. A Lesson On Guns?. Further, in America's passion for
guns: ownership and violence by the numbers, Tom McCarthy cites statistics pointing out that
more than 100,000 people are shot each year in the US with about 30,000 fatalities a year. 70%
of gun deaths in the US were committed with handguns, so assault rifles are not the largest
contributor to the problem of overall gun violence. However, most mass shootings involve

assault rifles.
How US gun culture compares with the world in five charts - Kara Fox
Proof of what works
 If we are denied valuable research in the US we must look outside our country to places
that have solved or are on the way to solving the problem.
On April 28,1996, Australia had its worst mass murder in their history with 35 dead and
23 wounded. In just twelve days the government enacted strict gun control laws. As written in
Here are 3 countries where gun control worked by Priyanka Boghani. Boghani, a journalist with
a specialty in foreign policy and a focus on human conflict, explains a buyback program got rid
of 600,000 guns, mostly semi-automatics, about one fifth of the guns in the country. Australia
“outlawed private sales, required that guns be individually registered to their owners, and
mandated that buyers present a ‘genuine reason’ for purchasing the guns.” writes Boghani. She
cites published research by Australian Labor Member of Parliament Andrew Leigh, “the
buyback program reduced firearm suicides by 74 percent and gun-related homicides by 59
percent.” Australia has had zero mass shootings since instituting the buyback program. The
combined effort of reducing the amount of guns in the country and stricter laws had a drastic and
continual positive effect.
Scotland and Britain, after each suffered a mass shooting killing 16 people per instance,
also enacted tougher laws. Boghani continues, banning civilians from owning handguns entirely
in Scotland. She writes that Britain made registration of shotguns mandatory and banned semi-
automatic and pump-action weapons, a firearm buyback then reduced the amount of firearms in
the UK by the thousands. Boghani notes that, although initially it seemed to have little impact,
the longer study of the countries showed that number of crimes involving guns dropped 53
percent and specifically any crime involving a handgun dropped 44 percent. With a large amount
of guns still prevalent in their society it took the UK longer to reduce the crime rate of guns but
did reduce crime as they continued to crack down. Scotland most recently has shown a decline of
75 percent in firearm crimes over 10 years as announced in the title of a BBC article covering the
subject, Recorded firearms crime in Scotland falls by 75% in 10 years.
Now, let us look at a society that has long had a series of strict gun control laws; Japan. It
is very difficult to own a gun in Japan and the majority of its citizens have never even seen one
in person. The country monitors not only its citizens but closely regulates all firearm
manufacturers and distributors, with a very large focus on punishment for illegal possession of a
firearm. Japan has enjoyed a continual drop in gun deaths in the last ten years says Harry Low, a
journalist for BBC, in his article How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime. Low draws a
drastic comparison between the US and Japan, “[i]n 2014 there were just six gun deaths,
compared to 33,599 in the US.” Japan’s gun control regime is a direct argument against the often
stated, “if you make guns illegal only criminals will have them.” Low goes on to talk about how
the police force can focus on de-escalation of crimes instead of the threat of force. Low asserts
that, “[o]nly six shots were fired by Japanese police nationwide [in 2015].” The statistic further
helps aid the argument against the fear that criminals will still have guns.
 Year 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

No. 31 21 30 38 34 17 22 19 28 23

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

8
39 24 35 17 10 2 21 10 4 11

Number of victims who were shot to death in Japan: Firearms-Control Legislation and
Policy: Japan

So in conclusion
America has a major problem when it comes to gun violence and not just mass shootings.
We own far more guns than the rest of the world per capita and gun violence research is
controlled and restricted across the board. The NRA spends more money on the media of gun
control than any other lobby in the US and the gun control debate carries on. Mass shootings are
a constant in our society and are still less than 70 percent of the overall gun violence. Can we
look outside our country for the answer? Data suggests that gun control is working elsewhere.
Can we make it work here?

Works Cited
 “America's gun culture in 10 charts.” BBC News, BBC, 15 Feb. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-
41488081.

Boghani, Priyanka. “Here are 3 countries where gun control worked.” The Week - All you need to know
about everything that matters, 14 June 2016, www.theweek.com/articles/629877/here-are-3-countries-where-
gun-control-worked.

Ellis, Blake, and Melanie Hicken. “The money powering the NRA.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network,
money.cnn.com/news/cnnmoney-investigates/nra-funding-donors/index.html.

Fox, Kara. “America's gun culture vs. the world in 5 charts.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 Feb. 2018,
www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html.

Kodjak, Alison. “What If We Treated Gun Violence Like A Public Health Crisis?” NPR, NPR, 15 Nov. 2017,
www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/11/15/564384012/what-if-we-treated-gun-violence-like-a-public-
health-crisis.

Lemieux, Frederic. Effect of Gun Culture and Firearm Laws on Gun Violence and Mass Shootings in the
United States: A Multi-Level Quantitative Analysis . International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences , Jan.
2014, www.sascv.org/ijcjs/pdfs/Lemieuxijcjs2014vol9issue1.pdf.

Low, Harry. “How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime.” BBC News, BBC, 6 Jan. 2017,
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729.

Martin, Michel. “Could Finland Teach The U.S. A Lesson On Guns?” NPR, NPR, 13 June 2014,
www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321668585/could-finland-teach-the-u-s-a-lesson-on-guns.

McCarthy, Tom, et al. “America's passion for guns: ownership and violence by the numbers.” The Guardian,
Guardian News and Media, 3 Oct. 2017, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/us-gun-control-
ownership-violence-statistics.

PolitiFact, and Bret Stephens New York Times columnist

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/guns-second-amendment-nra.html?_r=0. “Counting up how
much the NRA spends on campaigns, lobbying.” PolitiFact, 11 Oct. 2017, www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/article/2017/oct/11/counting-up-how-much-nra-spends/.

“Recorded firearms crime in Scotland falls by 75% in 10 years.” BBC News, BBC, 29 Nov. 2016,
www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-38143327.

Rosen, Meghan. "MISFIRES in the Gun Control Debate. (Cover Story)." Science News, vol. 189, no. 10, 14 May
2016, p. 16. EBSCOhost,
libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=114917474&s
ite=eds-live

Works Cited
 Rosenberg, Mark. “The NRA has blocked gun violence research for 20 years. Let's end its stranglehold on
science.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gun-
research-funding-20160614-snap-story.html.

“Sorry, Despite Gun-Control Advocates' Claims, U.S. Isn't The Worst Country For Mass Shootings | Stock
News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD.” Investor's Business Daily, Investor's Business Daily, 20 Feb. 2018,
www.investors.com/politics/editorials/sorry-despite-gun-control-advocates-claims-u-s-isnt-the-worst-country-
for-mass-shootings/.

Umeda, Sayuri. “Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: Japan.” Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: Japan
| Law Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/japan.php.

Zhou, Youyou. “Three percent of the population own half of the civilian guns in the US.” Quartz, Quartz, 6 Oct.
2017, www.qz.com/1095899/gun-ownership-in-america-in-three-charts/