The UK changed its gun laws in 1996 after a school shooting killed 16 children. Meanwhile U.S citizens wait for gun change.
Lucee Laursen
I have always been a supporter of the phrase “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That being said, if I could go back in time and stop guns from being produced, I would. Because even though I recognize that guns on their own do not kill people, they do make it significantly easier.
People can only justify using guns to protect themselves because guns exist. Allowing more and more people to have guns is like saying two wrongs make a right. Our country and laws allow dangerous people to have guns, so in order to stay safe, we have given more people guns?
U.S. gun culture needs to change. I am all for people having the ability to protect themselves, but I wish we lived in a country where people did not feel it necessary to protect themselves with guns. In the United Kingdom, the average citizen does not own a gun. According to Small Arms Survey, there are only 6.5 guns per 100 people in the UK. In the U.S., there are 101 guns per 100 people.
Subsequently, the United States has a much higher gun-violence rate than the United Kingdom. In the UK, only one person per 1 million is killed by a gun; 41.5 people per 1 million are killed by guns in the United States. It is not shocking that more guns equate to more gun violence.
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So, what do we do as a society? Well, we can learn from the UK. In 1996, 16 children were killed in a school shooting. Citizens reacted by signing petitions and pressuring their lawmakers to make a change. A year and a half later, they passed a law that banned private ownership of handguns in the UK. Officials collected some 200,000 firearms and 700 tons of ammunition.
Of course, there were many people who were opposed to the change. Not everyone who owns a gun is going to use it to kill or injure others. Yet, as a society, the UK decided banning handguns was worth doing if it saved the lives of innocent people.
In the United States, I do not expect to see a complete ban of firearms. Nor do I believe that this is the answer. Rather, there needs to be some sort of meaningful legislative response to this tragedy. It is our government’s job to ensure at a minimum that those who possess guns are not a threat to our society. Up to this point, our government has not been able to achieve that standard.
Lawmakers need to create laws that make it significantly more difficult for people to obtain guns. It is our Second Amendment right to bear arms. But we should also expect that those who are able to have guns are, at the very least, not a threat to public safety.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, there have been 291 school shootings in the United States since 2013. We can all agree that one school shooting is one too many; 291 is absurd, outrageous, and repugnant. Sitting idly by while children are slain at our schools is unacceptable. Lawmakers have to answer our public outcry by making it more difficult for people to obtain guns.
