Origins – creation of the first firearms:
In the 9th century, Chinese invented black powder as a means to use fireworks. This invention soon found its way into weaponry. The first firearms trace back to the 10th century. During the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese invented what historians deem the first ever firearms. The first guns were made from a tube of bamboo filled with gunpowder to fire a spear.
Around the 13th to 14th century, firearms made its way to Europe and the Middle East. The Silk Road trading system gave European and Middle Eastern regions the ingredients needed. Overtime, the spread of gun technology allowed guns to evolve into the fierce, dangerous and controversial weapon we know it as.
Origins and history of American gun culture:
America’s traditional hunger for guns dates all the way back to America’s frontiersman days. The American frontier era was rough and rugged period. Almost everybody during the Frontiersman era carried a firearm of some sort. Knowing how to hunt and shoot was a necessity for survival due to the wild and dangerous agrarian environment. Before the American Revolutionary War, the U.S government did not have a full-time army, thus being an armed civilian was more necessary.
There is no question about it. Americans venerate guns. Guns are, after all, glorified in American cultural traditional. In fact, it may be venerated to an alarming degree due to the many civilians that own them, and how easy it is to obtain them, including through nefarious means. One concerning example of how Americans traditionally love guns is data revealing there are more guns in America than there are American people. In America, there are 120.5 guns per 100 residents. America also owns a large amount of handguns. The total number of handguns in the world is 857 million. America owns 45 percent of those handguns.
American gun control – history and how it began:
The term “gun control” is described as laws that regulate the manufacturing, modification and possession of guns. Gun control came fruition 143 years after the ratification of the 2nd Amendment (right to bear ‘arms’, meaning guns). As a response to the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the first gun control legislation known as the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934. It was a means to decrease gun violence by taxing the manufacturing and distribution of guns, restricting people with a criminal background from getting a gun, and requiring gun shows to have a federal firearms license to sell weapons.
Following the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, the FFA was replaced by the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). The GCA are a series of federal laws that examines and regulates who can buy or sell firearms. Such regulations include prohibiting gun distribution to people who are felons, below the age of 21, and mentally ill, along with restricting obtaining guns overseas.
Reality check – the true nature of gun control in the United States:
Unfortunately, there are many loopholes around legally purchasing a gun. For starters, gun sellers, including sellers with a Federal Firearms License (FFL), can sell guns privately under the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA). The FOPA Act, signed by president Ronald Reagan, is a federal law that allows FFL sellers to distribute guns to people with less restrictions. This opened the following slippery slope of loopholes for individuals that are unfit to carry guns:
Background checks – Before one can purchase a gun, it is required to have a background check examined. The seller must run the background check through the federal system, which evaluates factors such as criminal and mental health history. However, background check enforcement is extremely weak. They are infamously underfunded and underresourced. The FBI can take days to complete a background check to give authorization to buy a gun. By that time, a gun is already sold. This results in misinformation or reports taking too long which results in the customer being allowed to purchase a gun. Another issue is the appetite for some sellers host a private gun shows where one, usually a friend or family member, evades a background check, thus the private seller makes fast and easy cash as well as making it easier to obtain a gun.
A great example of slipping through a background check is the Charleston Church shooter, Dylann Roof. Despite failing a background check due to a history of substance abuse, Roof managed to obtain a handgun. The FBI did not receive his background check in time, giving Roof the opportunity to kill nine and injure one church attendees with a Glock.
Legal bias – America is a historic racially divided nation that glorifies guns. Gun control has a history of being presented in the form of prejudice, targeting minorities. One example is the Mulford Act that targeted the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party, who resided in Oakland, California, was a Black organization that patrolled their neighborhood by practicing their right to publicly carry a firearm. This was act was efficient in protecting the areas they occupied. However, it did not bode well with the government who viewed the Black Panthers, or any seemingly power Black person, a threat. In an act to strain the Black Panther’s power, California Governor Ronald Reagan passed the Mulford Act. The Black Panthers protested this unfair bill by marching to the Capitol with loaded guns. Unfortunately, this did not help prevent their right to bear arms from being usurped.
How Gun Control correlates with gun violence (in metropolitan areas):
The basis of gun control is to prevent someone who should not have a gun from obtaining one to curtail gun violence, right? This may be true to an extent. For example, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act prevented 2.1 million purchases from 1994 to 2014. An estimation of those preventions were given to one million people who had a criminal history.
Studies show states with stricter gun control have fewer cases of gun violence. This includes both city and rural states (this article will however focus mostly on metropolitan areas). New York State is considered strict with gun ownership. For instance, carrying a handgun in the open is forbidden and purchasing assault rifles is prohibited. In 2019, NYC’s crime rate reached a record low of an estimate of 95000 incidents.
California is considered to be the state with that has the toughest gun restrictions out of any state. To manufacture, sell or obtain a gun requires 5-year Firearm Safety Certificate along with a monitored written test. If there is any violation of a firearm in the state of California, one can receive a 10 year ban. On a federal level, it can also result in a lifetime gun ban. In 2019, the crime rate in California decreased from the previous year to 2272 per 1000 residents.
Possible solutions – what the US can do and how other rich countries’ gun control policy fare well compared to the United States?:
Can control work? Yes. But there is still a lot of work to be done. To grasp a better understanding of the efficiency of gun control, here is a look of how other rich countries fare well with gun control:
[Canada] – Canada’s gun control policies are similar to the United States but is regulated with major restrictions. Obtaining a license to carry a firearm is a strict process. When applying for a license in Canada, you go through a series of background checks. This includes 18 years of age (some exceptions allow 12-17 but must be under supervision of a licensed owner), criminal history, mental evaluation, cases of domestic violence, and addiction. They also prohibit certain guns such as sawed-off shot guns, short barreled handguns and certain military guns.
Once you obtain your gun license, it must be renewed every five years. Once you get a gun, you must, by law, keep it in storage unloaded when not using it.
In 2019, the total number of gun homicide in Canada, a population 37.59 million, was 263.
[United Kingdom] – The United Kingdom has some of the most strict western gun control policies in the world. Its policies contradict the reason many Americans want a gun: self-defense. In Britain, self defense is considered not a good reason to own a gun. Generally, handguns are banned from the public and reserved only for police and militiamen.
In order to get a license to own a gun, you must have a reason that is validated by the local police chief. The few exceptions where a civilian can own a weapon include job requirements, shooting vermin and sport. Background checks include evaluation of age (must be 18 and above), criminal history, mental illness, drug addiction, home state and attitude towards firearms. Once one is given a firearm, you must renew your license every 5 years and keep your gun in storage unloaded when not using it. Any unlawful use of a firearm can result in 5 years in prison.
In 2019, the total number of gun homicide in the United Kingdom, a population of 66.65 million, was 33.
So what can help curtail American gun violence? It is a complicated multistep solution. America’s gun violence problems stems from simply having too many guns that are poorly supervised. However, because studies have shown strict gun control decreases gun violence, it is time for the U.S to practice more strict gun control.
âHell yes, weâre going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.â – Beto O’Rourke
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