Gun violence and how to stop it.
As someone from a country where mass shootings are very rare and yet is ranked 10th place in “Estimate of civilian firearms per 100 persons” (USA #1) I have an outsiders opinion on why America is failing their citizens. My take on Gun violence and how to stop it.
Reasons for violence:
1st Reason in my opinion is the culture over all. This of course varies greatly state by state and city by city in America. As mostly American culture seems quite self centered (everyone for themselves even with the cost of others. Blaming others for your own faults etc.). And violence focused problem solving ideologies like good guy with a gun. This causes problems that could be solved by taking a different approach to healthcare (especially mental healthcare and it’s availability) and other people around you. When you have healthy and educated people around you, the social problems that lead to gun violence reduce. (worth noting that economic stability allows those 2 things to flourish).
American culture is also very divided to “Us vs Them” thinking. Where people tend to dehumanize their opposition to only represent the problems they see in them, thus lowering the bar for using violence against them.
2nd Reason for high gun violence is the availability of guns. One of the problems is that states vary their approach to guns and regulating interstate gun trafficking is hard. Also the amount of illegal guns already on the market makes it difficult to lower the availability of guns in any fast schedule.
There are also many other problems and topics that relate to gun violence.
But these 2 problems seem to be the biggest ones in my eyes as someone looking the problem from outside on gun violence and how to stop it.
I see the need to own a gun for self-defense when most of the bad guys also have a gun. And the USA police department country wide doesn’t have the best and most reliable image. In this way the USA also differs from other first world countries and makes it a more difficult environment to reduce gun violence.
Solutions
There are no instant silver bullet solutions but these have worked in every other country in the world:
1st improve your country’s living standards and address your social and cultural problems. Reduce hate in your communities, improve your law enforcement to be more reliable and trustworthy so you would not need guns for self defense.
2nd start regulating more strictly your supply of guns, for either everyone or just new gun owners (super slow but will still in the end bring results). it takes many years to take effect against people who truly seek to acquire guns for illegal purposes. As there are so many guns already floating around. Yes this process will inconvenience honest people, but it absolutely will reduce the amount of guns that end up in the wrong hands. Better start fixing the problem later than never.
So how you regulate guns?
You form an online registry. Just like cars but with an additional check if a person is suitable to buy a gun.
Guns should be then registred to their owners during a sale and after that their gun can be sold and transferred only to suitable individuals who have passed the check for the registry.
In a private sale if a person is not allowed to own a gun, the system will prevent the transfer of the ownership and the seller cannot get the gun off their registry.
To prevent illegal sales, you should have a time period, for example every 3 years, where the guns you own are checked to still be in your posession. This will then result in private sales to illegal recipents to be needed to be reported as stolen guns. Now atm your police department probably doesnt have resources to investigate these, but in the long run they will. And you should really treat guns with the respect they deserve in a matter like this.
Additional solutions are “good guys self regulation”
1 idea I have heard was to require people who own guns, and people who are on a waiting period to be allowed to buy guns, to be required to join “a well regulated militia”. Either organized by the state or by the gun owners themselves. These “militias” would be quite small and hold meetings/trainings thus creating at least 1 social circle for gun owners. This also allows the gun community to watch over others who are trying to acquire a gun for possible red flags. This idea of course has lots and lots of problems. But it’s something that some gun owners want to be tried out before the other solutions are ready on their own to match the task at hand.
Radical Silver bullet:
If you want to humor yourself there is a Radical Silver bullet:
For those who desprair for silver bullet that will solve the problem quite fast. You can always make guns require insurance. Insurance companies should be obligated to offer one in their options. A person must aquire insurance for the gun before it can be bought. In case of a shooting make insurance company pay for lets say $50 million per death and $5 million per injury. Plus an extra $3 million to public healthcare payment per incident involving their gun. For illegal guns make every insurance company offering gun insurances split the bill by the % of the market they have. If a person loses their gun etc. insurance will go up or eventually be denied. If a person is involved in unlawful incident relating guns, their guns will be taken from them. Insurance companies can subject them for up to 5% cost of the damages.
Have a buyback program for illegal and legal guns to reduce the black market.
This tactic will have insurance companies denying suspicious individuals insurane. It’ll also make insurance companies against the gun lobbyist who cost them money. And it will pit gun owners against other gun owners who are acting suspiciously. Because their neglect or acts of violence could cost them in insurance premiums. Everything in USA is about money in the end and so is the silver bullet.
PS. I’d love to own a .50 cal Beowulf rifle, but it’s illegal in my country :(. But at least any of my friends or me did not die in a school shooting. Check out my other posts on my blog or if you have something to add tag me on twitter.