Guns are a disease that has quickly taken over our nation. The call for stricter gun control laws has been increasing over the past several years throughout the U.S.
The argument that guns are either weapons of death or a natural right for American citizens to bear arms under the Second Amendment, has been tossed around and then forgotten. The discussions seem to falter in the aftermath of any shooting to allow time for mourning, but if we made decisions these tragedies could cease to happen.
In 2017 alone, 307 mass shootings (defined as the killing of three or more people) have occurred in the U.S. in less than 310 days. Almost 14,000 have been killed and over 28,000 have been injured by guns.
The causalities of the gun statistics are increasing, yet people are turning a blind eye even as these atrocities continue to occur.
To bring it closer to home, San Bernardino suffered a home terrorist attack in 2015, as well a recent school shooting at North Park Elementary last year.
Growing up in this city, I was constantly surrounded by gun violence. Whether it was drive-bys at parties, neighbors being shot outside of my driveway for gang initiation, or hostage situations at school, gun violence became a routine.
We adjust and become desensitized to the terror around us.
California has some of the most restrictive laws regarding gun control, including a waiting period of ten days, firearm registration and an assault rifle ban. These laws are easily disregarded and worked around due to the easy access to guns in neighboring states such as Arizona, which has little to no infringements on purchasing a weapon.
California Senator, Dianne Feinstein, previously wrote the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, which was not passed due to the NRA’s lobbying used in Republican politics.
After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, she is trying to bring it back to Congress with modifications.
These modifications would ban the use of bump stocks, which are devices attached to semi-automatic weapons that allow them to fire faster and are not illegal under federal law. Twelve of the rifles used by the Las Vegas shooter were modified using these attachments.
Banning guns would not take place in America for several years, however, it is something to start pushing for as hard as we can.
As a country, we hold onto the patriotic ideology that if guns were taken away from our citizens, we would lose something from our history, but we would be building a better future.
What we should do is open the conversation about limiting access to the types of weapons that are sold and create a better system for who can purchase and carry weapons.
For example, the United Kingdom allows certain measures for farmers or people that hunt for sport. The average citizen, however, has regulations placed on them after the massacres at Dunblane Primary School and the town of Hungerford.
Other high-income countries such as Japan, Germany and Australia have also implemented strict regulations regarding the ownership of assault weapons. This has resulted in little to almost no gun crimes.
It is time for American citizens to look at the effects that guns have on our society.
No longer should we hide behind the Second Amendment and think of the past. We should be thinking about our future and what is best for our society.
We shouldn’t constantly be forced to worry about our friends and family waiting for the next tragedy to strike.
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Interesting perspective the author of the Coyote piece has. She should come to where I live in the County area where law enforcement has a 45 minute response time (We have the best Sheriff’s Department in the state….budgets don’t allow enough Deputies on duty to handle all the calls) to our address on a good day. I prefer to be able to defend my family without begging or allowing bad people to do harm to those I love and the place we have worked so hard for. As a two tour Viet Nam veteran and a 30 year retired Fire Department Captain, I will handle it till the LEO’s can get here to take over. That’s the only “conversation” that will be taking place here.
Hi Wilderbeast,
If you are a student at CSUSB, you can submit an article of your own that could be featured in the Chronicle! Seems like you have another perspective from the writer and we’d like to hear about it. You are more than welcome to submit a piece about your experiences and have your thoughts heard!
-Lauren, Editor in Chief
I’m glad you mentioned Australia’s gun buy-back confiscation program because it doesn’t seem to have worked. The results are just now coming in. Here are some facts. Australia is an island nation about 84 percent of the size of the U.S. but populated by less than the number living in Texas. Additionally, 65% live in large cities and 85% live within 30 miles of the coast, placing it among the most urbanized nations in the world. It is also one the very few nations in the “free world” that does not have a formal Bill of Rights. Most notably, it does not recognize a right to bear arms. Most so-called “gun deaths” in the U.S. were suicides and as most would conclude, suicide will take the path of least pain. But the fact is the U.S. suicide rate is only slightly higher than Australia’s (1.25 times), about the same as our slightly higher overall crime rates (1.19 times).
Doubtlessly, a reason for differences lies with population density which is 12.1 times higher in the United States, a statistic that often is quoted by sociologists as a causative factor in suicide rates, crime rates and quality of life. Notably, America enjoys a slightly higher quality of life (1.13 times). The disconnection between firearms and suicides is best exemplified by Japan that allows almost no personal firearms ownership. In 2014, Japan’s suicide rate was almost double the US rate. They simply use other methods. That said, one also needs to consider compliance. The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia estimates compliance with the “buy back” of self-loading long guns, and pump shotguns at 19 percent. For corroboration, other independent groups estimate that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been surrendered.
Since 1990, Australia’s homicide rate has decreased by nine percent compared to a decline in the U.S. by 39.4 percent. Since 2001, Australia’s armed robberies declined by one-third compared to 18.5 percent in the U.S. I used these periods because they’re the ones cherry picked by leftists interested only in making their point. For example, since 1990, robberies in the U.S. have declined by 46 percent, a figure never cited by leftist media. And they never mention the fact that firearm sales tripled simultaneous with a significant decline in all the recorded crime categories. The undeniable downside to Australia’s confiscation effort is during the past 10 years, recorded assaults increased 40 percent compared to a U.S. decline of 16 percent. And during the same period, sexual assaults in Australia increased 20 percent compared to a 15 percent decline in the U.S. Said another way, mass murders by any means reveal as many as in the 10 years after Australia’s colossal confiscation as there were in the 10 previous years. A direct comparison of murder rates isn’t meaningful because according to the GAO, illegal aliens commit 5,639 murders annually in the U.S. while the number of illegal aliens are negligible in Australia.
By now, a majority know America has a small problem with mental health treatment and institutionalization. But it’s “a” problem, not “the” problem. Fact is “the” problem is vanishing. Both nations need to start dealing with the real problem — not gun murders — just murders. Of 219 nations, the U.S. ranks 126th. Stated another way, your chances of being murdered in the U.S. are 49 thousandths of a percent (.0000488). In Australia, your chances are one thousandths of a percent (.0000098). That’s a difference of 48 thousandths of a percent, a very small number any way you look at it. Leftists say your chances of being murdered in the U.S. are almost fifty times as great as they are in Australia. But fifty times almost nothing is almost nothing. A statistician’s trick perhaps. Factoring out murders by illegal aliens would place the U.S. at 103rd, among the safest half of the world, 3.2 per hundred thousand compared to Australia’s .98 per hundred thousand. Hoo boy, that means the U.S. is only three times as dangerous as Australia with a difference of about .0000264 or about three-thousandths of one percent.
Demonizing the U.S. “gun death” rate is popular but recent data indicates 19,392 use firearms to take their own lives annually. That’s about 49.1% of the total suicides and 58.9% of the total deaths by firearm. That leaves about 13,537 for gangs, other murderers, law enforcement and of course those who defend themselves. Perhaps most egregiously, leftists never, ever clarify the claimed “gun death” number with the unknown number murdered by illegal aliens. Regardless, that leaves about 9,537 as the internationally comparable number, changing the U.S. rank and public opinion generally. In view of the Syrian refugee and amnesty program now erasing the U.S. southern border, that number seems significant. Because that data claims murders in the U.S. totaled 14,827 in 2015, a significant number must have been committed by means other than firearms. Closer to reality, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime now puts total U.S. murders at 12,253.
If firearms somehow were denied to the deranged segment, suicides would continue by drugs and other methods. And murders would continue with stabbing, cutting and striking implements, fists, feet and hands, autos, drugs, drowning, drops, pushes and suffocations. Law officers would continue to shoot those who attack them leaving the rest to accidents and a small number for self-defense. I’d add that firearms are used more than a million times annually by lawful citizens defending themselves with about 86 percent never firing a shot. That self-defense number might change but only if criminals stop committing crimes merely because they have no firearms and are forced to use other implements.
Comparing Australia’s gun control experience has become fashionable and one writer said “…it took a brave prime minister to face the rage….” But I’d add it took much more. John Howard was a career politician unfettered by a 2nd Amendment. On the other hand, America suffers with many freedoms because it has a strong Constitution. Over the years, many other nations surrendered their freedoms because they had no constitution or failed to defend it. Many of those nations have been protected for decades by the U.S. precisely because the U.S. vigorously defends its 2nd Amendment. Most nations didn’t or never had a 2nd Amendment. Leftists often point to Australia’s gun control success because “gun deaths” down under are rare. Well of course they’re rare. If they’d confiscated all the rope, deaths by hanging would be rare. Most notably, Australia’s disarmament project was a compulsory buyback of almost a million firearms, funded by taxpayers. More simply, it was government confiscation more brazen than what occurred in prewar Germany.
In other words, to duplicate this “success,” the U.S. government would have to repeal the 2nd Amendment and purchase 400 million firearms, costing about $200 billion. In view of results in New York and Connecticut where compliance was only about four percent and 10 percent respectively, litigation would be overwhelming and perhaps followed by colossal violence not seen since the Civil War. Besides, a Sydney University study found in 2013 that 1,055,082 firearms had been legally imported into Australia since the 1997 buyback — about the same number as had been collected under that program, a later buyback of handguns as well as numerous gun amnesties, court-ordered seizures and voluntary returns of weapons since 1988. It seems pretty clear that there is no link between the number of guns in a country and the frequency of mass shootings. Incidentally, Australia was one of the nations the U.S. helped protect from the Imperial Japanese Navy that was poised to attack early in 1942.
As a footnote, one U.S. statistic stands out. Over the past 40 years, the number of fatal gun accidents involving children aged 0-14 declined 90 percent while the supply of firearms tripled. Firearms exist in large numbers in the U.S. precisely because Americans believe in the natural right to self-defense, particularly against the kind of oppressive government under which they now struggle. Additionally, recent terror attacks have hardened the public’s position against gun control. More than a million now overtly refuse to obey gun registration and confiscation laws in just two states. Adjusting to public opinion, New York stopped comparing death certificates to permits and taking firearms from widows. On the other hand, it kept the $100,000 arsenal seized from a man heard arguing with his son inside their home.
In the U.S., self-defense struggles against gun control. In Australia, where the struggle has been extinguished, more than 30 asylum seekers released into the community have been charged with crimes ranging from smuggling to pedophilia to murder. For example, Kazem Payam, a jealous 35 year old Iranian boat alien, was granted a protection visa in 2010. Payam met with the new boyfriend and resolved the dispute by stabbing him repeatedly in the chest. Nobody helped the victim and several nearby stores locked their doors.
Comparisons are terribly complex because our respective problems are unique. And in spite of unique problems in only the United States, according to the FBI, violent crime and homicide rates are at record lows. And it occurs simultaneous with record numbers of gun owners, more guns in citizen hands and more good people carrying concealed firearms for protection outside the home. And record low crime rates have occurred simultaneous with the point in time when all 50 states have at least some sort of concealed-carry system. The point is gun control is not crime control. And America’s crime rates are about in the middle of worldwide data. By the way, over the past 20 years, the Australian government has spent about $540 million on management of its program and thus far, it has not produced as promised. Certainly both nations hope to instill fear in the minds of violent thugs before they commit crimes. Their respective struggles won’t end and only time will judge their collective wisdom.
This is the best example of a rebuttal I’ve ever read. Excellent writing!
If word count makes a good rebuttal, this is one of the best. But the rebuttal takes Ms Illman’s arguments about about Australia’s solution to gun violence and reduces it to an inane argument comparing total gun deaths to the entire population. And bounces between defending the amount of gun deaths and some doubtful arguments about immigration.
Gene rebutts all the arguments that Ms Illman doesn’t make, IMHO, not very well.
Here is a point. A gun in your house will more likely kill you or a family member than an attacker.. And if that is not true, if you live where you and your family is under a constant threat of attack, by all means keep a gun in your house. But keep it locked up so your toddler doesn’t shoot himself or your neighbor kid. And consider if its worth keeping it if you have a teenager with pressures from school or her/his peers that may cause suicidal thoughts. And if you get fired or your business starts to fail or your wife is cheating on you, it maybe time to let your friend keep your toys that go boom until things settle down. And work your butt off to save some money and move to a better neighborhood.
Hi UnarmedanUnafraid,
If you are a student at CSUSB, you can submit an article of your own that could be featured in the Chronicle! Differing opinions, thoughts, and ideas give readers more to think about and can even start conversations to spark change.
-Lauren, Editor in Chief
Hi Gene,
If you are a student at CSUSB, you can submit an article of your own that could be featured in the Chronicle! Seems like you have a lot of knowledge regarding this topic and we enjoy hearing the thoughts and perspectives of ALL CSUSB students.
-Lauren, Editor in Chief