The United States and Gun Laws


As of the 5th of August, the number of mass shootings (incidents with at least four casualties) in the U.S. in 2019 stood at 255, marking an average 1.18 shootings per day. With these figures, the United States holds a gun violence death rate of roughly 12.5 deaths per 100,000 people, one four times as high as those of Syria and Yemen. In terms of homicides as a whole, in 2017, 73% of homicides in the U.S. involved a gun, which falls in stark contrast to the 38% of Canada, 13% of Australia and 3% of England and Wales.

The correlation is clear: as a gross generalization, many western countries with stricter gun control policies tend to experience lower rates of gun-related homicides than those who stubbornly defend the right of civilians to bear arms. From the nations mentioned above, for instance, Canada mandates gun safety training for and performs rigorous background checks on those who wish to purchase firearms. The usage of such firearms is also significantly more restricted than it is in the United States. Australia and the U.K. both underwent serious crackdowns on firearm usage after shootings in the 1990s, with the arming of even British police forces being relatively uncommon.

The widespread insistence on gun ownership protection in the States despite the evidence is a rather bizarre phenomenon, yet the belief goes as far back as the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified in December of 1791. Ultimately, the success of gun control activists hinges on the ability of Americans to understand that this 230-year-old piece of legislation will not apply in an age where muskets and flintlock pistols have been replaced by more-than-excessively powerful semi-automatic rifles.

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