Introduction
In the United States, Americans lose their lives to gun crimes daily. Gun violence refers to violent crimes like murder, suicide, and attempted suicide involving firearm use. Americans have debated gun laws for many years, and firearm use is a hot topic since it causes severe grievances and even fatalities for many individuals.
Main Body
According to American news headlines, the Ohio shootings, where four people were slain, are the most recent victims of shooters who opened fire at schools (Jonson et al., 2018). While gun fatality rates worldwide have lately decreased in other nations, they have remained steady in the US. People debate the relative merits of gun rights vs. gun regulation as the government listens without judgment.
Gun control advocates feel that people should have to face stricter conditions to purchase a handgun. At the same time, gun rights supporters contend that individuals should be able to arm themselves. I created a social media post about a meeting to advocate for and discuss the causes of gun violence planned for Community Learning Day. Due to this focus, a few changes have been made at the state level, but if the country wants the United States to be free of gun crime, it must address this issue nationwide.
The gun law mandates secure storage of firearms and empowers prosecutors to take custody of parents who knowingly or negligently enable minors to have unauthorized admittance to weapons. This statute targets to lower inadvertent weapon damages, suicides, fatalities, and brutal crimes among young people (Betz et al., 2021). Since it restricts juvenile access to firearms, this law supports broader social justice. My advocacy tries to prevent youngsters from using unattended firearms.
According to a response from the Gun Violence meeting, unsupervised gun use by children has been linked to many fatalities in America, particularly in homes and schools. My policy seeks to save lives and avoid violent crimes, unintended fatalities, and suicide by promoting the secure storage of firearms and restricting children’s access to them. Around 1000 children under 18 died from gunshot wounds in 2020 (Magee et al., 2020). Around 41% of these deaths were deemed to be suicides, and only 6% were determined to be accidental. In advocating for the secure storage of firearms in homes, I hope to encourage a family-friendly atmosphere for adults and children. This advocacy aims to lessen the burdens placed on the juvenile and criminal justice systems, mainly by lowering the number of kids detained for possessing illegal firearms.
The two most frequent types of gun violence are mass shootings and suicides using firearms. Although no specific phrase for a mass shooting exists, the federal authorities established four or more fatalities as the threshold. A recent instance of a gun massacre included a white 21-year-old male who began firing at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring several more (Nacos et al., 2020). Another instance is the 24-year-old Ohio guy who murdered nine people and injured hundreds more (Peterson et al., 2021). These are just a few of the numerous mass shootings in 2019 alone. However, since weapons abuse compromises people’s lives’ integrity, gun crime is a criminal issue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the issue of gun violence will require a long time to overcome since it is not a straightforward societal problem that can be solved in a few days or weeks. Because of the polarized views of Americans on the topic, the federal government cannot enact tighter gun restrictions, which are the root of the problem of gun violence. To prevent weapons from falling into the wrong hands, such as people who are mentally ill or unstable, Americans need to put in place clear legislation. Although most states have lax gun restrictions, there is still time for citizens to step up and reform such laws. However, before it is too late and the issue is too enormous to solve, people need to address the societal problem of gun violence.
References
Betz, M. E., Harkavy-Friedman, J., Dreier, F. L., Pincus, R., & Ranney, M. L. (2021). Talking about “firearm injury” and “gun violence”: Words matter. American Journal of Public Health, 111(12), 2105–2110. Web.
Jonson, C. L., Moon, M. M., & Hendry, J. A. (2018). One size does not fit all: Traditional lockdown versus multioption responses to school shootings. Journal of School Violence, 19(2), 154–166. Web.
Magee, L. A., Dir, A. L., Clifton, R. L., Wiehe, S. E., & Aalsma, M. C. (2020). Patterns of adolescent gun carrying and gun-related crime arrests in Indianapolis, Indiana over an 11-year time period. Preventive Medicine, 139. Web.
Nacos, B. L., Shapiro, R. Y., & Bloch-Elkon, Y. (2020). Donald Trump: Aggressive rhetoric and political violence. Perspectives on Terrorism, 14(5), 2–25. Web.
Peterson, J., Erickson, G., Knapp, K., & Densley, J. (2021). Communication of intent to do harm preceding mass public shootings in the United States, 1966 to 2019. JAMA Network Open, 4(11). Web.