Quick briefing on the origins of firearms:
The first firearms traces back to the 10th century. During the Yuan Dynasty, Chinese invented the first guns. The first guns were made from a tube of bamboo filled with gunpowder to fire a spear. Overtime gun technology spread to other nations as well as evolving into the fierce, dangerous and controversial weapon we know it as. Guns are an American tradition. How does this play out in real life.

Origins and history of American gun culture:
America’s traditional hunger for guns dates back all the way to America’s frontiersman days. During the American frontier era, knowing how to hunt and shoot was a necessity for survival due to the wild and dangerous agrarian environment. Almost everybody during the Frontiersman era used a firearm of some sort. Before the American Revolutionary war, the government did not have a full-time army, thus being an armed civilian was more necessary. Either you were hunting animals, or fighting against other combatants (notably Native Americans). In modern times, gun culture is more associated with rural living and hunting animals as a form of animal population control.

There is no question about it. Americans venerate guns. It is, after all, a glorified cultural traditional in America. In fact, it may be venerated to a scary degree due to the many civilians that own them along with how easy it is to obtain them, including through nefarious means. One scary example of how Americans traditionally loves guns is data shows there are more guns in America than there are American people. In America, there are 120.5 guns per 100 residents. The total number of handguns in the world is 857 million. America owns 45 percent of those handguns.

History of American gun control and how it began:
The term “gun control” is described as laws that regulate the manufacturing, modification and possession of guns. It took 143 years for gun control to come to fruition after the ratification of the 2nd Amendment. After the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929, the first gun control legislation was passed under president FDR, 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. 4 years later, the Federal Firearms Act (FFA) was enacted. The FFA restricted people with a criminal background from getting a gun while also 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 people who are felons, below the age of 21, and mentally handicapped as well as restricting obtaining guns overseas.

The “frightening” true nature of gun control in the United States:
Unfortunately, there are so many loopholes around 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). This federal law, signed by president Reagan, allows FFL sellers to distribute guns to people with less restrictions. This opened a slippery slope of loopholes for individuals not fit to carry guns.

Background checks are required to be examined before one can legally buy a gun. However, background check enforcement is extremely weak. The seller must run the background check through the federal system which evaluates factors such as criminal and mental health history. But background checks 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 easier 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 which allowed Roof to kill nine and injure one church attendees with a Glock.

America not only glorifies guns but also glorifies a racially divided nation. Gun control has a history of being presented in the form of prejudice, targeting Black minorities. One example is the Mulford Act that targeted the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party, who resided in Oakland, California, 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 to 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 with however focus mostly on metropolitan terrain). 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 house 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. Can control work? Yes. But there is still a lot of work to be done.