America’s Gun Problem: How To Help Solve Our Mass Shooting Epidemic

The United States has a gun problem, but can we do anything to fix it?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve most likely heard about the numerous shootings recently, including the shocking incident that occurred on live TV last month. We’ve decided it is time to have a serious conversation about gun violence – but first, here’s a little quiz.

Can you guess which product was considered so dangerous, the United States government changed the way it was sold? Here’s a description of the product. See if you can guess what it is.

This product has a federal regulation requiring the purchaser to present photo identification at the time of purchase, and stores are required to keep personal information about purchasers in a written or electronic “logbook” for at least two years. The log must identify the products by name, quantity sold, names and addresses of purchasers, and the dates and times of the sales. Regulated sellers must ensure that customers do not have direct access to this product before the sale is made, and there is a limit to how many an individual can purchase in a single day, and in a month.

Were you able to guess what the product was? The answer is pseudoephedrine, a decongestant found in cold and allergy medicines like Sudafed and Allegra. That’s right. There are more restrictions on the amount of medicine (which helps relieve pain) a person can buy, than there are for the amount of bullets (which are used to harm people) a person can buy. Maybe that’s part of the problem with America’s mass shooting epidemic. See the FDA’s allergy medicine regulation here.

According to the New York Times, more Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American history. So why is it that the United States strongly resists implementing life saving regulations when it comes to gun and bullet sales?

A crazed disgruntled employee made national headlines a few weeks ago when he gunned down a reporter and cameraman on live TV, but that’s not the only horrific gun incident that occurred recently. Here’s a sampling:

Christopher Starks, 22, died after being shot at Savannah State University on August 27. If gun shootings at college campuses aren’t enough to spark change, how about guns in elementary schools? A third grader brought a .380 semi-automatic handgun to school on August 25, and a bullet grazed the leg of a little girl after the gun went off in class! To top things off, Chicago had their deadliest day in more than a decade when nine people were killed and twelve others were wounded in shootings across the city on September 2. 

Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. What’s it going to take America? 

Let’s be clear about one thing. Gun control does not mean banning guns. It means controlling and regulating them. It means implementing practices like mandatory background checks, increasing access to some mental health records, limiting the monthly and daily sales quantities of guns and bullets to individuals, requiring pins on guns before they can be used (similar to how you access your smart phone), and gun locks, to name a few options. There are numerous ways to pass gun safety laws without taking away a person’s right to own a gun.

Gun control opponents like to say that many people die from auto accidents each year, so why don’t we ban cars? Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times explains how we should use car laws as an example for how we should treat gun laws.

Cars are actually the best example of the public health approach that we should apply to guns. Over the decades, we have systematically taken steps to make cars safer: We adopted seatbelts and airbags, limited licenses for teenage drivers, cracked down on drunken driving and established roundabouts and better crosswalks, auto safety inspections and rules about texting while driving.

This approach has been stunningly successful. By my calculations, if we had the same auto fatality rate as in 1921, we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually from cars. We have reduced the fatality rate by more than 95 percent.

The number one thing you can do to inflict change is to contact your Congressman and your Senator and demand they take appropriate action to advance gun control. Last, but not least, make sure you know where candidates stand on gun control laws during the next election. 

Do you have ideas on how we can lower gun violence in our country? If so, let us know in the comments section below.

 

Images: March On Washington For Gun Control 26 January 2013. Photos by Elvert Barnes via Flickr and a CC license