In light of recent events involving mass shootings and the resulting 'March for our Lives Movement', we wanted to provide a comprehensive resource for those seeking to learn more and get involved in student and political activism. There are by no means easy solutions, but we firmly believe in the necessity of fundamental change - political, socio-cultural, and within the economic sphere of policy.
A Stance for More Effective Gun Control
We can not longer stand idly by while more innocent lives are lost. It is not productive to find new places for blame, but rather to look to the future and where improvements within our system can be made. We need to discuss real options for change against this gun problem, not be in favor of arming more individuals. We can make background checks more thorough to decrease the likelihood of at-risk individuals obtaining access to a gun and harming others, or limit access to the massive gun market, which is statistically correlated to more deaths by gun violence.
Suggestions for Policy Change
(See resources: Washington Post)
1. Ban semiautomatic weapons that allow shooters to fire into crowds without reloading.
Yes, this is unlikely to halt rising numbers of deaths due to gun violence in America, but our goal is not to prevent all deaths relating to gun crimes. We are merely trying to make it difficult for mass shootings to occur, and should be doing everything we can to mitigate that risk. Pointing out statistics about unrelenting gun crime rates is counterproductive, and distracts from the issue at hand.
2. Increase stringent regulations and law on safe-storage laws.
Gun owners should be required to store firearms in a locked container or with a tamper-resistant device. Many gun violence incidents involve accidents occurring with minors that have easy access to a gun, unknowingly. Measures should be taken to ensure that guns do not reach the hands of people who do not know how to operate them, at the very minimum. We should also be using technology to our advantage, like fingerprint activated guns or other controls on gun use that moderate the number of potential accidents due to gun violence.
3. Stop the easy flow of gun sales.
Regulation doesn't solve everything, but it certainly makes things harder for people. The notion of red tape bureaucracy should be used to hinder people from buying guns as easily as buying something from Walmart. The government should raise minimum age limits for gun purchases, and increasing penalties for underage/illegal possession of firearms to discourage sales. In any case, it should be much harder to purchase a gun, unless there is a justifiable reason for doing so.
4. Target specific kinds of weapons in special-incentive buyback programs, in calculated and staggered stages.
Australia has proven (with a record of no mass shootings in the last 22 years) that a buyback program has potential. Although the US has much higher numbers of people who own guns, it is likely that there may be a price point that owners of specific kinds of semiautomatic weapons and handguns may be willing to pay, if incentivized correctly. The government and its affiliated agencies should be doing research on whether this is a viable option, and what such a pricepoint may be, if it means significantly reducing the number of guns available.
5. Greater accountability and record keeping with gun purchases in bulk.
There are very few viable reasons that come to mind that would justify the need to buy a large number of guns all at once. There should be strict limits on the number of guns bought per year, per capita. There remains a possibility that suppliers can simply pay other people to buy guns for them to resell illegally, but the cost for these sellers would have shown a significant increase, increasing pressure on such sellers and likely proving to be a cost barrier to many.
6. Auditing and regulation of licensed gun dealers.
Negative reports and publicity are a threat to business, and threats to business can be a motivating factor for licensed gun dealers. There needs to be greater criminal repercussions for dealers allowing their guns to enter criminal markets or interstate trafficking, as well as mandatory and regular inspection intervals of gun facilities and sellers.
7. Make all suppliers have mandatory, more thorough background checks, including psychological vetting and waiting periods.
Increasing waiting periods, or the time between purchase and delivery of guns, might have the potential to save lives, by allowing people who are attempting suicide to rethink their actions. It is also surprising that only licensed gun dealers have to perform background checks, while private sellers and online retailers may opt out. That means people can buy guns online or through private markets without going through any kind of demarcation. And if there really is a mental health problem that is related to mass shootings, we should have all the more reason to increase the strength of our background checks with an emphasis on psychological profiling.
8. Cut out harmful loopholes that exist within the framework of our governing policy.
The "Boyfriend Gap" is a loophole for domestic violence offenders to get away with owning a gun through the narrow and ambiguous classification as a 'boyfriend' rather than spouse or partner. The "Charleston Loophole" says that if a gun sale background check takes more than three business days, the sale can proceed. Why does the time needed to obtain a gun reflect such a quick turnaround? It is hard to imagine why an average civilian would need a gun on such quick notice, or need a reason to bypass layers of background checks to get a gun after three days.
9. Mandatory Registration of Guns with Police
This would allow policemen to trace guns to their legal gun owners, increasing regulation and making the identification of criminal activity involving guns easier and more expedited. This would be as simple as registering your car or computer on a shared network.
(See resources: Washington Post)
1. Ban semiautomatic weapons that allow shooters to fire into crowds without reloading.
Yes, this is unlikely to halt rising numbers of deaths due to gun violence in America, but our goal is not to prevent all deaths relating to gun crimes. We are merely trying to make it difficult for mass shootings to occur, and should be doing everything we can to mitigate that risk. Pointing out statistics about unrelenting gun crime rates is counterproductive, and distracts from the issue at hand.
2. Increase stringent regulations and law on safe-storage laws.
Gun owners should be required to store firearms in a locked container or with a tamper-resistant device. Many gun violence incidents involve accidents occurring with minors that have easy access to a gun, unknowingly. Measures should be taken to ensure that guns do not reach the hands of people who do not know how to operate them, at the very minimum. We should also be using technology to our advantage, like fingerprint activated guns or other controls on gun use that moderate the number of potential accidents due to gun violence.
3. Stop the easy flow of gun sales.
Regulation doesn't solve everything, but it certainly makes things harder for people. The notion of red tape bureaucracy should be used to hinder people from buying guns as easily as buying something from Walmart. The government should raise minimum age limits for gun purchases, and increasing penalties for underage/illegal possession of firearms to discourage sales. In any case, it should be much harder to purchase a gun, unless there is a justifiable reason for doing so.
4. Target specific kinds of weapons in special-incentive buyback programs, in calculated and staggered stages.
Australia has proven (with a record of no mass shootings in the last 22 years) that a buyback program has potential. Although the US has much higher numbers of people who own guns, it is likely that there may be a price point that owners of specific kinds of semiautomatic weapons and handguns may be willing to pay, if incentivized correctly. The government and its affiliated agencies should be doing research on whether this is a viable option, and what such a pricepoint may be, if it means significantly reducing the number of guns available.
5. Greater accountability and record keeping with gun purchases in bulk.
There are very few viable reasons that come to mind that would justify the need to buy a large number of guns all at once. There should be strict limits on the number of guns bought per year, per capita. There remains a possibility that suppliers can simply pay other people to buy guns for them to resell illegally, but the cost for these sellers would have shown a significant increase, increasing pressure on such sellers and likely proving to be a cost barrier to many.
6. Auditing and regulation of licensed gun dealers.
Negative reports and publicity are a threat to business, and threats to business can be a motivating factor for licensed gun dealers. There needs to be greater criminal repercussions for dealers allowing their guns to enter criminal markets or interstate trafficking, as well as mandatory and regular inspection intervals of gun facilities and sellers.
7. Make all suppliers have mandatory, more thorough background checks, including psychological vetting and waiting periods.
Increasing waiting periods, or the time between purchase and delivery of guns, might have the potential to save lives, by allowing people who are attempting suicide to rethink their actions. It is also surprising that only licensed gun dealers have to perform background checks, while private sellers and online retailers may opt out. That means people can buy guns online or through private markets without going through any kind of demarcation. And if there really is a mental health problem that is related to mass shootings, we should have all the more reason to increase the strength of our background checks with an emphasis on psychological profiling.
8. Cut out harmful loopholes that exist within the framework of our governing policy.
The "Boyfriend Gap" is a loophole for domestic violence offenders to get away with owning a gun through the narrow and ambiguous classification as a 'boyfriend' rather than spouse or partner. The "Charleston Loophole" says that if a gun sale background check takes more than three business days, the sale can proceed. Why does the time needed to obtain a gun reflect such a quick turnaround? It is hard to imagine why an average civilian would need a gun on such quick notice, or need a reason to bypass layers of background checks to get a gun after three days.
9. Mandatory Registration of Guns with Police
This would allow policemen to trace guns to their legal gun owners, increasing regulation and making the identification of criminal activity involving guns easier and more expedited. This would be as simple as registering your car or computer on a shared network.
Opposing Views Addressed
1. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
While this ultimately holds true, the fact remains that guns make it exponentially easier to kill other people. Many people point to knife-related deaths in crime ridden cities as evidence that taking away guns would be ineffective, but the method of killing with a knife or similar hand-held weapon is fundamentally different than shooting a gun, which is often removed from the scene and can be extremely impersonal in the case of mass shooters shooting from the safety of a hotel room. People need to remember that the goal is not to end all gun-related violence and crime, but to take preemptive and reasonable measures to decrease shooting casualties, especially mass shootings in which large numbers of people are murdered in cold blood. This is about protecting the livelihoods of people, and fostering a society that isn't afraid of stepping outside in very public, crowded areas for fear of being shot. No one disagrees that people kill people, but why should we as a society make it easy for them to?
2. Limiting or banning semi-automatic weapons would be an infringement of Second Amendment rights.
Your second Amendment rights were drafted in the colonial period, where it was necessary to be armed to protect people from quartering soldiers and the underdeveloped government from becoming corrupt and overstepping their boundaries. People argue that limiting guns would be the start of a slippery slope that would lead to infringement of other constitutional rights, such as the freedom of speech and religion. But what is often omitted is that even these fundamental Constitutional rights have been subject to restrictions - there are constitutional limits to freedom of speech if harm is involved, such as when used in libel, aids a crime, inflicts severe emotional distress, is treasonous/leaks classified information, or plagiarizes. Why shouldn't the Second Amendment be regulated in the same way, especially considering the stakes at play here - this has ceased to become an issue of hobbyist communities wanting freedom to pursue their recreational activities, but rather an issue of juggling the lives at risk. There is also judicial precedent in federal courts for the constitutionality of limited gun ownership and assault weapons use.
3. Blame the mentally ill and the crime ridden cities.
To characterize America's gun problem as a problem allocated to the mentally ill is a falsehood, and frankly discriminatory. It is using people with mental illness (who account for only 5% of gun homicides) as as a scapegoat for our own persistent, endemic problems within the infrastructure of our government policy. There are larger factors at play other than "crazy" people going on killing rampages, such as systemic social anxiety and unrest, racism and poverty, and lack of access to comprehensive mental health resources. To place the blame solely on the 'deranged' is irresponsible, and is pushing blame on people that have been historically shown to be mostly nonviolent. Even if we are to address mental health in relation to gun control laws, we should be strengthening our electronic mental-health record infrastructure rather than dismissing mental health as a problem out of our control.
1. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
While this ultimately holds true, the fact remains that guns make it exponentially easier to kill other people. Many people point to knife-related deaths in crime ridden cities as evidence that taking away guns would be ineffective, but the method of killing with a knife or similar hand-held weapon is fundamentally different than shooting a gun, which is often removed from the scene and can be extremely impersonal in the case of mass shooters shooting from the safety of a hotel room. People need to remember that the goal is not to end all gun-related violence and crime, but to take preemptive and reasonable measures to decrease shooting casualties, especially mass shootings in which large numbers of people are murdered in cold blood. This is about protecting the livelihoods of people, and fostering a society that isn't afraid of stepping outside in very public, crowded areas for fear of being shot. No one disagrees that people kill people, but why should we as a society make it easy for them to?
2. Limiting or banning semi-automatic weapons would be an infringement of Second Amendment rights.
Your second Amendment rights were drafted in the colonial period, where it was necessary to be armed to protect people from quartering soldiers and the underdeveloped government from becoming corrupt and overstepping their boundaries. People argue that limiting guns would be the start of a slippery slope that would lead to infringement of other constitutional rights, such as the freedom of speech and religion. But what is often omitted is that even these fundamental Constitutional rights have been subject to restrictions - there are constitutional limits to freedom of speech if harm is involved, such as when used in libel, aids a crime, inflicts severe emotional distress, is treasonous/leaks classified information, or plagiarizes. Why shouldn't the Second Amendment be regulated in the same way, especially considering the stakes at play here - this has ceased to become an issue of hobbyist communities wanting freedom to pursue their recreational activities, but rather an issue of juggling the lives at risk. There is also judicial precedent in federal courts for the constitutionality of limited gun ownership and assault weapons use.
3. Blame the mentally ill and the crime ridden cities.
To characterize America's gun problem as a problem allocated to the mentally ill is a falsehood, and frankly discriminatory. It is using people with mental illness (who account for only 5% of gun homicides) as as a scapegoat for our own persistent, endemic problems within the infrastructure of our government policy. There are larger factors at play other than "crazy" people going on killing rampages, such as systemic social anxiety and unrest, racism and poverty, and lack of access to comprehensive mental health resources. To place the blame solely on the 'deranged' is irresponsible, and is pushing blame on people that have been historically shown to be mostly nonviolent. Even if we are to address mental health in relation to gun control laws, we should be strengthening our electronic mental-health record infrastructure rather than dismissing mental health as a problem out of our control.