For years, gun violence has been on the rise, but in the past few years alone, rates and statistics have skyrocketed in the United States. In 2023, there have already been 479 mass shootings as of September 1st, averaging roughly two mass shootings a day.
The United States has become one of the highest-income countries in the world, coming in 7th with about $80k per capita. “Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than people in other high-income countries,” says Giffords Law Center. It is estimated that about 30-in-100 American adults own a gun – a stark contrast from the 4-in-100 gun-owning Australian adults and the 0.25-in-100 in Japan.
These higher statistics are largely due to the lack of gun control laws in America. For example, in the U.S., there are two steps you must take to own a gun: pass an instant background check and purchase the gun.
However, in countries like Japan, there are many steps that include joining a shooting club, obtaining a doctor’s note saying you are mentally fit to own a gun, describing in a police interview why you need to own a gun, applying for numerous permits like gunpowder ownership, buying a gun safe, and allowing police to inspect your gun safety techniques. Then, only after all that is said and done, may you buy a gun in Japan. By enforcing all these steps and laws, Japan has nearly eradicated gun violence, having only nine incidents involving the discharge of a gun in 2021.
“Basically, people don’t have guns or think having a gun is an important thing to do unless they’re into hunting or shooting clay pigeons, which are about the only reasons you could be authorized to have a gun unless you’re a policeman,” Andrew Gordon, a history professor at Harvard told TIME Magazine.
Though gun violence continues to plague nearly every aspect of American life, politicians refuse to do anything about it. A recent example of this was the shooting at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill that left professor, researcher, and father Zijie Yan dead. The college shooting came just two days after a racially motivated mass shooting at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, leaving three people dead. The gunman in the latter incident was “armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun and was wearing a tactical vest and blue latex gloves,” a sheriff told CNN. He “used racial slurs, left behind a racist screed, and drew swastikas on his firearm.” Both shooters have been arrested and are facing major charges, but the likelihood of any laws or regulations regarding gun control changing is limited.
A few days after the shooting at UNC Chapel Hill, nearly 600 students “demanded during a rally that lawmakers address gun violence across North Carolina and the rest of the country,” said News Observer. For many students attending the rally, this was not their first school shooting. David Hogg – a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that took 17 lives in 2018 – made a speech about the reality of the American school system.
“Our entire lives, as a generation, we’ve been told to run, hide and fight,” he said to the crowd. “We need to refuse to listen to the people that say to us, ‘Oh, you’re too emotional to be talking right now, what happened just happened one time,’ when this happens every single day in America.”
Because the government refuses to address gun violence, mass shootings have become an everyday occurrence in America – another statistic. But they aren’t just statistics. “As of August 1, 2023, at least 25,198 people have died from gun violence – which is an average of roughly 118 deaths each day,” said ABC News. That is 25,198 mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, teachers, and so many more who have died at the hands of a gun. None of those people had to die, and no one has to die tomorrow, or the day after that. And yet, they will. People will continue to die, and schools and grocery stores will continue to be places of nightmares until the government decides they don’t have to.
