"Cultural Perspectives On Gun Laws" by Mika P.
On October 26th, a Dallas policeman shot his son after thinking he was an intruder. Fortunately, no serious injury or death occurred. No charges were filled and an arrest was not made. After I read this I began to think, what would people who don’t live in the U.S. might think about this.
In the year 1996, an Australian man opened fire at a local tourist site killing 35 people. Not long after that the Australian government basically outlawed guns. All of the Australian states agreed to the new laws and that is what made it work. There is a 28 day waiting period and require a justifiable reason to own a gun. In the US self protection is a reason to own a gun. That will not fly in Australia. These laws were passed 23 years ago and since then there has only been one mass shooting, the murder-suicide of a family in Wales in 2014. (BBC News) Also, one-third of the country’s firearms were sold back to the government and destroyed. The laws were passed to decrease specifically mass shootings, but the rate of suicide and homicides have decreased since 1996.
In Australia or the UK, the Dallas policeman would most likely lose his job and be in prison. Even though the son was not killed that is still not heard of there. It happens all the time here and we don’t think anything of it. According to CBS News, there have been more mass shootings than days this year. As of September 1st, there have been 283 mass shootings in the U.S. The GVA (Gun Violence Archive) a mass shooting is one where four or more people have died. Gun control is getting more and more out of hand. If we ever enforce the gun laws that Australia has it would not work.
According to BBC News, in America, there are approximately 101 guns per 100 people. In Australia, there are about 13.7 guns per 100 people. In the U.S. we have to right to own a gun and we have for a long time. Not a lot of people will be willing to give up their guns or their rights that they have had forever.
According to Reutters, in 2011, 47% of Americans reported owning a gun. In other parts of the world owning a private gun has many different laws. In the UK the gun laws are extremely strict. You have to have a Shotgun Certificate and a Firearm Certificate. To gain the Firearm Certificate you must be over the age of 14 and you must have a good reason for needing one. You must also have two different references and state all or any of your criminal records. This certificate has to be renewed every five years. According to Business Insider, in 2011, the UK had 0.07 gun homicides for every 100,000 people and the U.S. had three gun homicides for every 100,000 people. Because of the strict gun laws in the UK, gun homicide is extremely lower than in other places around the world.
In Australia or the UK, the Dallas policeman would most likely lose his job and be in prison. Even though the son was not killed that is still not heard of there. It happens all the time here and we don’t think anything of it. According to CBS News, there have been more mass shootings than days this year. As of September 1st, there have been 283 mass shootings in the U.S. The GVA (Gun Violence Archive) a mass shooting is one where four or more people have died. Gun control is getting more and more out of hand. If we ever enforce the gun laws that Australia has it would not work.
According to BBC News, in America, there are approximately 101 guns per 100 people. In Australia, there are about 13.7 guns per 100 people. In the U.S. we have to right to own a gun and we have for a long time. Not a lot of people will be willing to give up their guns or their rights that they have had forever.
Works Cited
Beck, Katie. “Are Australia's Gun Laws the Solution for the US?” BBC News, BBC, 4 Oct. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35048251.
Hickey, Walt. “How Australia And Other Developed Nations Have Put A Stop To Gun Violence.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 16 Jan. 2013, www.businessinsider.com/canada-australia-japan-britain-gun-control-2013-1.
Richardson, Clare. “Perspectives of Global Gun Cultures.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 12 Apr. 2013, blogs.reuters.com/events/2013/04/12/gun-culture/.
Silverstein, Jason. “There Have Been More Mass Shootings than Days This Year.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 1 Sept. 2019, www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-shootings-than-days-so-far-this-year/.
“UK Gun Laws: Who Can Own a Firearm?” The Week UK, www.theweek.co.uk/100333/uk-gun-laws-who-can-own-a-firearm.
Vera, Amir. “Dallas Police Officer Shoots His Son after Mistaking Him for an Intruder.” CNN, Cable News Network, 28 Oct. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/10/27/us/dallas-police-officer-shoots-son-trnd/index.html.
I find this topic very interesting. When bringing up the argument that "well, if we ban guns, people will get them anyways!" I never have a rebuttal for this argument, because, in theory, it's true. However, when I see these statistics, it firmly realigns my favorable beliefs for gun control. If it has proven to work in many other large and prosperous countries, why can't it work in America? These facts give me some comfort in knowing that gun control is proven to work, and the culture surrounding gun control is different in other countries.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we should be more strict with our gun control policies. While I see the value that guns have to many people in rural America, it is both a large part of our culture and necessary for hunting. I also see that by limiting gun usage we dramatically decrease the number of mass shootings. I have always heard the argument that gun control will only keep the law abiding citizens from having guns while the criminals will still have them. This may be true, to an extent, when it comes to singular homicides or organized crime; however many school shootings are done by teenagers, teenagers who would have a much more difficult time trying to smuggle a gun. In other words, I think that the UK and Australia's gun control policy would not work very well in lowering 1st degree murder, it may help limit so called crimes of passion (we also need to keep in mind that both of those countries are islands), it would help stop school shootings by keeping unstable teenagers from easily getting a gun.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joseph that easy access to guns for people in the U.S. increases the risk for crimes of passion. I also believe that cutting off a route to killing others could just divert people to other ways. The whole problem with this is that America is very different from every other country in the world. The quote “Give me liberty, or give me death,” sums up how the founding fathers felt about freedom and protection from a tyrannical government. Our government cannot be blindly trusted to not take advantage of us. If race relations already seem bad now, just imagine what it would be like if we had laws like Australia’s. It would be very sad to hear minorities cry about how their people are being murdered by the police, but they couldn’t do anything to protect them. Passing certain “tests” instead of a normal background check seems eerily similar to the literacy tests used to harm people of color as well. The second amendment is not meant to protect hunting rights; it is meant to ensure that the American people can protect themselves from a tyrannical government. It is meant to protect the people from the government, not protect the government from the people.
ReplyDelete