Sandy Hook, Charleston, Roseburg, Orlando, Las Vegas. These are just some of the 1,518 mass shootings the US has had since December of 2012. These have led to a death toll of over 1,700, with 6,000 wounded. They affect everyone: schools, offices, homes, and communities. No one is safe from guns. After every one of these shootings, we say “never again”. But after the tweets stop flowing and the media stops talking, nothing happens. Unfortunately, some politicians, many of them Republicans, refuse to do anything. But here’s why we need to, and how we can make change.

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

This is the second amendment of the constitution. It guarantees every American the right to own a gun, which was great when we had pioneers traveling deep into the west to colonize. But now, times have changed. We don’t need to have a high-powered gun to defend ourselves from bears and bands of criminals on horseback. A small hand gun is different, but who needs a powerful AR-15 to go hunting? It’s not even practical to use for defense, and in the wrong hands can be used as a horrible weapon.

America’s homicide rate is atrocious, especially compared to other industrialized country. Many of our European and East Asian counterparts have introduced stricter gun control and gun safety laws, which may have helped decrease their gun death rates. Now some social and economic reasons may play into this, but data shows that after many countries pushed gun ownership down, death rates went down.Data courtesy of Josh Tewksbury

Individual states have also enacted some light gun control in their states, most to protect children. These states not only reduced child deaths, but decreased gun death rates overall.                                                   

After seeing these numbers and how smarter policies actually work, it’s time for America to enact smart gun control laws. These may include doing simple things like creating a gun registry that all law enforcement can access, or do larger things like banning semi-automatic weapons that can easily become fully automatic weapons. It’s also important to encourage people who own guns to go to a registered gun course and learn how to safely use a gun, and secure it after use. Most Americans also support some form of control.

But, there will be lots of obstacles. The National Rifle Association or (NRA), only has about 5 million members, but controls many of the politicians. Last year, gun makers made $16 billion dollars worth of guns and ammo, which were sold to private citizens. In the 2016 election, the group and their super PAC spent almost $27 million dollars on senate, congressional, governor, and presidential campaigns; most of the money went to Republicans, but almost $1 million went to Democrats, as reported by NBC News.

It’s important to reach out to our representatives and fight for new laws. You can find out how to help here: https://www.preventioninstitute.org/focus-areas/preventing-violence-and-reducing-injury