Mass shootings, a serious problem, happen frequently in the United States. For instance, seventeen students and staff were killed, and fourteen others were wounded by a student went on a shooting rampage at his former high school in Florida on 14th February, 2018.
These issues draw Americans’ extensive attention to the gun control laws. Thus far, gun control is a different facet which may vary state by state. However, there is a federal gun control law which must be followed by every states. This law regulates different types of gun ownership by implementing a comprehensive background check. However, there are loopholes existing in the law that federal law allows private sellers to sell guns without background checks. Therefore, there must be an enhance on the restriction of reselling and purchasing a gun. While some Americans oppose enacting a tighter gun control law, it is conducive to the national security, society and citizens’ safety. It will be explained why the United States should enact more gun control law for reducing the homicide cases and the social costs associated with gun violence and provide a safer living environment to citizens.
First, the amount of gun homicide cases can be reduced due to the stricter gun control laws. According to EFGSSF, there were approximately 13,000 gun homicide cases happened in the US on average every year and there are a year-on-year increase of gun homicide cases from 2013 to 2016 (2018). The data above illustrate that there is a huge amount of people who were killed by using guns as a weapon in the US and the situation of gun homicide became worse compare to the past years. This phenomenon is due to the lethality of gun. It is acknowledged that gun is the one of strongest lethality weapons and it is widely used on the battlefield. This is the reason why criminal always choose firearms as tool to commit a crime. Moreover, “the legal acquisition of a handgun appears to be associated with an increased risk of violent death.” This indicates that there is a positive correlation between violent death and the limit to acquire a firearm. In other words, an effective limitation of gun acquisition can conducive to abate the amount of homicide cases. Stricter gun control law can significantly increase the hardship of purchasing a gun in the US. To sum up, stricter gun control law may reduce gun homicide.
Second, stricter gun control laws would lead to the reduction of social costs related to gun violence. The gun violence can incur different costs, including direct costs (legal services, medical costs, policing, incarceration, foster care and private security) and indirect costs (lost earnings and time, life insurance, productivity, tourism, and psychological costs). In other words, once someone get gunshot wound, it will burden the society on the aspects mentioned. For example, mass shooting issues will weaken the tourism of the US since tourists might lose faith in the national security. Moreover, it's worth mentioning that gun violence also carries a heavy burden on the medical service in the US. In 2010, Emergency services were occupied 36,341 times and the hospitalization services were used 25,024 time by the people who were injured because of gun violence and it charge an approximated $6.3 million. In addition, 84% of gun injured patient are uninsured and leave the responsibility of paying tax through the Medicaid program.
If there is a stricter gun control law in the future, potential criminals will find more difficult to purchase a gun for personal use. There will be a possibility that less gun violence will happen and fewer citizens obtain gun wound simultaneously. Therefore, there will be fewer people get injured by gunshots and medical cost may decline. In addition, a less legal service fee will be needed, and tourism of the country would not harm by the gun violence. In short, the social costs related to the gun violence would be reduced due to the downturn of gun wound by enacting stricter gun control law.
The main reason of enacting a stricter gun control law is to enhance the national security. Nevertheless, some civilians in the US are of the opinion that gun control laws may abate inhabitants’ safety. It is because stricter gun control laws would increase the difficulty for inhabitants to obtain a handgun for self-defense. It is undoubtedly true that enacting stricter gun control law may raise the complexity of obtaining a firearm for safeguard; however, the stricter gun control would not forbid the right for purchasing a gun for self-defense. Instead, if a person who fulfills the qualification of purchasing a gun, that person still can purchase a gun for personal use. Furthermore, firearms are rarely used in self-defense. “In 2007-11, about 44% of victims of nonfatal violent crime offered no resistance, 1% attacked or threatened the offender with another type of weapon, 22% attacked or threatened without a weapon such as hit or kicked, and 26% used nonconfrontational methods”. This indicate that citizens seldom use gun for self-defense and imply that firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense. Rather than providing the chance to criminal, enacting stricter gun control law is a better choice to provide a relatively safe environment to citizens.
To conclude, though enacting tighter gun control law may weaken the effectiveness of self-defense, lethal weapons like handguns, shotguns and rifle should be controlled strictly under the accelerated legal system. It is conducted by three reasons which including reduced gun death in the US due to the assumed decreasing the amount of gun on the legitimate market, slashed the societal costs associated with gun violence on the aspect of medical and legal service and the increment of inhabitants’ security of US. Thus far, the stricter gun control law is insufficient for preventing the crime and accident because bullets will only be fired out by human. Therefore, the government should also dedicate to developing the education to lessen the probability of mass shooting in school happens again.
