writing: Kendall Cadegan
design: Hiya Patel
Within the first few months of 2023, numerous mass shootings have been covered by the media, yet only the bad ones are shown. According to the gun violence archive, 106 have already happened.
The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a shooting where four or more people are injured or killed, excluding the shooter. They also have to occur around the same location and time.
This issue has plagued the United States for many years, but year after year it continues to be a much larger problem than in other countries.
“Age-adjusted firearm homicide rates in the United States are 13 times greater than they are in France, and 22 times greater than in the European Union as a whole. The United States has 23 times the rate of firearm homicide seen in Australia,” according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The difference is significant, and people are left to wonder why that is. One reason is likely a result of stricter gun control laws and requirements that go into owning a gun.
In Switzerland, the average age-adjusted firearm homicide rate from 1994 to 2021 is about .84 according to gunpolicy.org. They have a higher rate than the majority of Europe, yet have not had a mass shooting since 2001 according to Business Insider.
This is due to their strong gun control laws. There is a high percentage of gun ownership but the country prohibits people who have “been convicted of a crime or have an alcohol or drug addiction” and anyone that “expresses a violent or dangerous attitude” from owning a firearm according to Business Insider.
In the United States, the level of gun control varies depending on the state’s legislation. Some regions like the Northeast have stricter gun laws, making them more similar to European countries, yet the efforts still don’t compare.
According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, “age-adjusted firearm homicide rates range from a high of 17 per 100,000 in Washington, DC, to a low of 0.91 per 100,000 in New Hampshire… Even though New Hampshire has the lowest rates of age-adjusted firearm homicides in the US, its rate is nearly five times greater than that of the European Union as a whole.”
Additionally, different areas of the United States face more mass shootings than others. Large cities for example, like Los Angeles and Chicago have a larger number of shootings, largely due to the population density.
Regardlessly, whether one wants to enhance gun control throughout the nation or not, it is difficult to say that gun violence is not a prevalent issue in the United States. Especially in places like schools.
According to the Washington Post, the worst year of school shootings so far. There were “46 acts of violence during school hours, 34 students and adults died while more than 43,000 children were exposed to gunfire at the places they go to learn and grow.
While looking at what other areas of the world do to prevent these tragedies it is clear that some additional gun control would help to improve the United States’ situation. More in depth background checks would help to ensure that the people who own guns are mentally able to do so. More support from people in government positions to ensure that the extra parameters can be implemented.
As a student who constantly sees these atrocities occur at other schools and colleges around it is worrying that little is being done to reduce them. Other countries don’t need to worry about this, so why should we?
It is necessary to start making changes within our country to combat the issue. Continuing to make little to no changes will only continue to devastate the children and the people of America.
