Gun Control

Gun Control

While the firearms debate is raging again in the United States, Rand Corporation has studied the impact of the change in legislation in three countries. The concept of gun control itself is very vague. America, traumatized by mass killings in its schools, is still divided over how to avoid these dramas. The United States has the highest civilian firearms ownership rate in the world (it is estimated that there are nine firearms in the United States for every ten people, including children). According to a 2016 study by Erin Grinshteyn and David Hemenway, the homicide rate is six times higher than in most other developed countries and the suicide rate by bullets is eight times higher. Statistics such as these raise an essential question: does the large number of American weapons increase the risk of violent death in the United States or do the Americans need to arm themselves more to defend themselves against a society? particularly violent?

The control of weapons is a possible solution to lower the high mortality that exists in the country caused by firearms. One of the most emblematic cases is the one in Australia that, between 1979 and 1996, had thirteen fatal shootings. Since he banned the sale of weapons in 1996 he did not have any gunfire. Today, the arsenal that exists in the United States is six times more deadly than that of Canada and 30 times more than that of Australia. It is proven that controls on the sale of weapons help reduce deaths, but for now the governments of the United States are not interested in implementing them.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, after the shooting in Texas, sent a message through social media that he was "praying for all those affected by the horrible shooting in Sutherland Springs." After the shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, the deadliest in history, where 58 people were killed, McCain had published that he was "praying for the victims." McCain prefers to pray and not control the sale of weapons, because he is the congressman who received the most funds from the NRA, some 7,740,521 dollars.

Accordingly, the smaller the number of available firearms, the lower the chance that an innocent person will suffer or be killed as a result of a shot. The facts of deaths in Florida clearly indicate the same thing. The number of children killed by firearms in this state increased markedly in the months after the bill came into force in October 1987, making the purchase and secret carrying of weapons easier for those permanently residing in the state. In the United States, there is agreement on possible methods for controlling criminal violence. The “prisoner's dilemma” is addressed in many modern works devoted to the theory of morality and social theory when considering situations in which there is a contradiction between individual and common interests. This model has been particularly effective in discussing the real problem of controlling nuclear weapons in the face of superpower confrontation.

To conclude “prisoner's dilemma” is the problem of choosing the optimal solutions under conditions where the outcome depends on the interrelated decisions of different agents. The theoretical idea reflected in this model is that personal interest can impede the achievement of a collective goal, which each of the individuals included in the situation regards as meeting his personal interests. They are in different cells and do not have the ability to communicate with each other. Most firearms of all types are already widely available in the United States. Undoubtedly, any criminal can choose a weapon to his liking, but I do not consider this to be a strong argument for making firearms even more affordable. The more weapons are concentrated in our country, the greater the likelihood that one person will inadvertently shoot another.

References

Rogowski JC, Tucker PD. Critical Events and Attitude Change: Support for Gun Control After Mass Shootings. Political Science Research and Methods. 2018 May:1-9.

Fleming A, McLean DS, Tatalovich R. Debating Gun Control in Canada and the United States: Divergent Policy Frames and Political Cultures. World Affairs. 2018 Dec;181(4):348-71.

Merry MK. Narrative strategies in the gun policy debate: Exploring proximity and social construction. Policy Studies Journal. 2018 Nov;46(4):747-70.