The Gun Violence Epidemic

By: Aileana E.

       In the U.S. more than 316 people die every day due to gun violence, a rate about seven times higher than Canada and 360 times higher than the United Kingdom. Gun violence has been occurring since the 1980s, and yet it is still one of the most prominent issues in the United States. But why, amongst all of the challenges our country faces, is gun violence so important to stop?

       Take Todriana Peters, a 12-year-old girl from New Orleans. Todriana was a sweet but stubborn girl who liked to clean, go to nail salons, and do people’s makeup. She also liked to dance and would perform TikTok dances in her living room with her cousin, Brione, who was her best friend. As her grandmother said, “She was a sweetheart. She was our sweetheart.” Then, on May 30th, Todriana and Brione threw an end of the school year party for little kids. On their way back from the party, they stopped at the party where Brione’s brother was to get a charger from him. During the few short minutes they were there, someone opened fire from outside. Two people were injured, and Todriana, who was shot in the head, died. Her family, like so many others across the nation, was plunged into a state of devastation and grief for the innocent life that was so cruelly destroyed because of a person with a gun.

       Gun violence is not just killing people in New Orleans, it’s happening everywhere in the United States, around the clock. Gun violence occurs so often that in just half a year, roughly 21,000 people die from the pulling of triggers. And to top that, there are more than 300 mass shootings every year. The level of violence is, “Most definitely a public health emergency,” says Daniel Webster, an American Health professor and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at John Hopkins. Although many might not want to admit it, Webster’s words speak the truth. 

       Gun violence is an issue that stalks our nation throughout the year, with no less than 327 people shot each day, but some times of the year, like holidays, are more fatal than others. On the fourth of July in 2022, seven people were shot and killed during a parade in Illinois. On that same day, a mass shooting occurred in Chicago, killing ten and injuring sixty. Although mass shootings definitely catch the most eye, the rate of suicides has been rising as well, with 132 people commiting suicide everyday, and almost half of all suicides involving a gun.

       Even though guns evidently cause an abundance of death when put in the wrong hands, they are still fairly easy to access. In 2021, over 43 million guns were bought in the U.S., which led gun deaths to rise 44.1 percent, the highest rate of gun deaths since 1995. With 400 million guns in just the U.S., of course there is bound to be violence. 

       Some states, like New Jersey, have recognized the connection between easy access to guns and the level of gun violence and have tightened their laws to make it harder for people who are likely to commit violence to just walk into a store and pay for a gun. Some laws include needing a purchaser identification card to purchase rifles and shotguns, and you can only purchase one handgun within a 30-day period. This means that someone has to be verified that they are allowed to purchase guns, and that they can’t make a stockpile of guns very easily.  As a result, many of the northern states with stricter gun laws like New Jersey’s have seen a huge decrease in the number of gun deaths, with only 191 killed all year due to gun violence, whereas in many the looser-lawed southern states, gun violence has spiked, with almost all of them seeing over 1,000 gun deaths a year.

       Another issue that is sending gun violence prevention screeching to a halt is the assumption that the people committing violence with a gun are all mentally ill. The truth is that people with treatable mental illnesses only make up about four percent of people who commit gun violence but are actually more likely to be the victims. It’s clear that other factors are much more closely associated with gun violence, like trauma in childhood, being young and male, having poor anger control, and most of all, having easy access to a firearm. 

       It’s scary to think that someone in your own neighborhood might commit gun violence one day, so people put the blame on those with mental illnesses. “Gun violence is a tragedy that demands an explanation, and the stigma of mental illness is something that fuels pseudo-explanations," said Jennifer Skeem, a clinical psychologist and professor of public policy and social welfare at the University of California. “It’s a fake explanation.” 

       The real explanation of why the tragedy of gun violence is happening is that not everyone is getting the support they need, and everyone needs to step up to support their friends and family. It’s important in stopping gun violence that we support everyone, especially those with trauma in their childhood, as trauma can leave damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health, which increases the risk of committing gun violence. 

       The person who pulled the trigger is definitely the one to blame for the people that they killed or injured, but not as many people would have even been hurt if the person who killed them didn’t have a gun. “There is a self fulfilling prophecy of, ‘I need a gun because everyone else around me has a gun’,” says Sasha Cotton, Director of Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention. It’s not necessarily bad to have a gun, and many people use guns for recreational purposes such as hunting, but the types of guns that have killed so many people are not guns that are used for hunting.  These guns are called high capacity magazines, and they allow the shooter to fire for a long time without stopping to reload.

       In the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, one of the most deadly mass shootings in the nation, the shooter used a high capacity magazine to kill fifty people without stopping. If the shooter had needed to stop firing to reload, many of those people would probably have been able to get away. Hunting does not use high capacity magazines, so there is no reason not to have a nationwide ban on them. It would certainly save a lot of people and would only make people’s lives safer. 

       
       Gun violence takes many innocent lives everyday, but it doesn’t get nearly enough attention to make a dent in the tragedy. While there are many problems that our country faces that can’t be stopped very quickly or efficiently, like global warming, if we work together to tighten gun laws and support everyone, we have the power to end gun violence once and for all.