The Problem of Gun Violence in America

In today’s society, one of the major problems that we face is gun violence. Gun violence is related to violence that can be considered criminal, however, some cases aren’t considered criminal. In data collected by the FBI showed that firearms were used in sixty-eight percent of murders, forty-one percent of robbery offenses and twenty-one percent of aggravated assaults nationwide. Most gun violations are mass shootings or school shootings which causes the number of deaths that include children and teenagers.

In America, gun violence has become a national security emergency. Based on past summary ledgers every year passing more people continued to die which doesn’t include the victims that are injured. For instance, in 2014, the number of deaths in the US from gun violence was 12,419, however, in 2018, the total number of deaths was 14,788; which means there was an increase of about 2,369 deaths. However, just in 2019, so far there have been 11,235 death of gun violence from the 42,332 incidents relating to gun violence and 22,264 people who had been injured.

Some contributing factors for mass shootings are the contagious nature of mass murder, the glorification of violence in video games, the opposition to immigration, white supremacy; radical Islam or other extreme belief. For instance, Adam Lanza, who was the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting had studied the massacre of Columbine as well as others; the Columbine High School Massacre was a school shooting and attempted bombing that happened April 20th in the year 1999 which within an hour, both 18-year-old Eric Harris and his 17-year-old partner Dylan Klebold died and had killed 12 students and one teacher, which was then the deadliest school shooting in American History. Another example was the man who shot to death 50 people in the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida who had studied the previous attack in San Bernadino, California which in both cases used radical Islam as a justification. As an example, Patrick Crusisus who was accused of shooting to death more than twenty adults and children in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, had seen a video that was posted by the man who had gunned down unarmed worshipers at Mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand. Video games can generally be a factor of mass shootings because as studies show that a huge proportion of males in the United States have played or are playing video games; yet only a handful of them have committed mass murders. Nevertheless, other shooters use the reasoning of the president’s racist rhetoric exacerbates this dynamic, immobilizes the responsible action by our elected representatives, and reinforces the divides in our society.

However no matter how many mass shooting there are in the US, the government still haven’t made laws for banning guns or assault weapons but they have made a couple of laws to protect civilians.The “ Red Flag” law was already enacted in several states which allow courts to issue orders for confiscating the guns of individuals who are deemed to be a risk to others or to themselves.The“ red flag” laws are designed to allow family members or law enforcement officials to go to a state court and ask the judge to issue an order that confiscates the guns of an individual who they believe pose a threat to their safety.