Gun violence

Gun violence references how people suffer and die because of firearms. Some types of gun violence, such as homicide, assault, attempted assault, and some types of firearm-related negligence, are considered criminal. Other types of gun violence, such as suicide and attempted suicide, may be criminal in some locations but are not always considered as such. Accidental deaths and/or injuries related to guns are not usually criminal offenses. Rates of gun violence vary widely between countries and cultural groups. Some argue that gun violence is especially a problem in the United States, as American citizens own 46 percent of all civilian owned guns in the world and have a gun homicide rate that is twenty-six times that of other high-income countries. Others argue that guns are not the problem; it is the mental health of those using them that causes the violence.

Overview

History of Gun Violence in America: Gun ownership in America is protected by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which states that all citizens have the right to own firearms. However, the purpose of this right is so citizens can form a militia, should this become necessary. When the Constitution was written, it was assumed that every militia member would need to bring their own weapon because there was no federal repository of arms or weapons. The US Supreme Court supported this interpretation until the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, where it ruled that according to the Second Amendment, every citizen had a right to own guns, regardless of their reason for doing so.

However, most Americans did not spend much time thinking about the Second Amendment until more recently. In the 1960s, the Black Panther movement highlighted the Second Amendment as a way for members of the Black population to defend themselves against police violence. The National Rifle Association (NRA), a community and lobbyist group that supports gun ownership and use, responded to the Black Panthers by promoting guns as the White population’s way of defending themselves against Black people. The organization believed that this was necessary because the Panthers advocated that all Black people should arm themselves.

This led to higher levels of gun ownership than ever seen in the United States. This was exasperated by the general social unrest because of hotbed political topics and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as rising homeless rates and higher levels of mental health problems. All this combined made America ripe for gun violence. Rates of both murder and suicide by gun have risen since the 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, though as of 2023 they were not quite as high as they were in the 1970s.

Gun Violence Around the World

In most countries, guns are more highly regulated than they are in the United States. This does not mean that some other countries also have high levels of gun ownership, but it is rarely enshrined as a constitutional right the way it is the United States of America.

It is difficult to accurately calculate the number of guns per capita in every country, as many have porous borders or stockpiles of weapons leftover from various military ventures. However, gun ownership around the world is generally seen as something that needs to be regulated, not something that every person has a right to. For example, Israel has a relatively high number of guns per capita, as all citizens must complete military service, and those on active duty have easy access to weapons. However, citizens who want to own a gun privately must meet a variety of qualifications and show that they need the gun for a specific purpose, such as going hunting or defending themselves.

In most countries, guns are allowed and accepted if a person qualifies to have one and has the background and training to handle it responsibly. However, guns are not central to daily life, nor are they something that every citizen has an automatic right to own.

A few countries have higher rates of gun violence. Many of these are in the Caribbean or Latin America. They include El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia. These are all less developed countries with a relatively recent history of war and/or civil unrest, high levels of drug cartel and gang violence, and large stockpiles of weapons leftover from previous conflicts. Among higher income, developed countries, the rate of gun violence is drastically lower than it is in the United States, though the exact rate depends on the country.

Gun Violence and Brain Development

Some gun violence problems in the United States and throughout the world may be traced back to gaps in brain development during adolescence. At this age, some individuals do not have enough self-control to keep their impulses in check. If people have the impulse to hurt someone and do not have the ability to stop themselves and have access to a gun, gun violence is likely.

This gap seems to be greater in adolescent men than in adolescent women. Researchers suspect that this is because the male brain has higher levels of testosterone, a chemical that has been connected to aggressive behavior in previous studies of both animals and humans. This does not mean that all adolescent males are likely to commit violent acts, but it indicates that they are the population most likely to do so.

The gap between the impulse and the self-control to resist is seen in adolescent populations around the world. These populations also take more risks than others and are less able to accurately evaluate their behavior. However, this does not result in high levels of gun violence in other countries as it does in the United States.

Most researchers believe this is because it is easy to access guns in America. Even if adolescents in other countries cannot control their impulses, they may not be able to access a weapon to act on them. This is often not the case in the United States.

Men and Gun Violence

In the United States and elsewhere, most gun violence is perpetrated by men. In one study, males carried out 143 out of 147 instances of gun violence. This statistic holds throughout the world. For example, in 2017, half of the homicides around the world were committed with a gun and 90 percent of the shooters were men.

It is unknown exactly why men are more likely to commit gun violence. Testosterone likely plays a role, as mentioned above. However, researchers also focus on socialization. In many cultures, men have more power than women and are believed to be less emotional than women, which results in them learning fewer skills to cope with their emotions. Thus, when men face mental health problems or disenfranchisement, they may be less able to cope with it in a healthy way and more likely to respond with violence. If they have access to a gun, they may be likely to use it violently.

Further Insights

Mass shootings are a form of gun violence that has increased in the United States. These include, but are not limited to, school shootings. Mass shootings nearly always occur in the United States, the only country that has had at least one mass shooting a year for more than twenty years. Since 2020, there have been 600 or more mass shootings in the United States each year, which amounts to about two per day. According to the Gun Violence Archive, in 2023, 656 mass shootings occurred in the United States. This study defined a mass shooting as an incident during which four or more people other than the shooter are injured or killed. Some definitions of a mass shooting exclude incidents of criminal activity such as gang violence, incidents that occur among families such as murder-suicides, or incidents of violence sponsored by the state such as military action.

In the aftermath of mass shootings, there is usually a public outcry to put limits on gun ownership. The argument is that making access to guns harder will limit the number of mass shootings. Evidence supports this because for the most part states with stricter gun regulations have fewer mass shootings.

However, gun laws have never successfully been changed in the United States at the federal level because of extensive controversy. Some debate whether changes in gun laws would reduce the number of mass shootings and other gun-related deaths and what kind of laws would be acceptable under the Second Amendment. The US government has repeatedly been criticized for its failure to do anything about gun violence, especially mass shootings. The government’s inability to pass laws limiting gun ownership has been noted by organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Center for American Progress, Amnesty International, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

Fears of mass shootings, as well as other forms of gun violence, have changed how many Americans think and live. About 60 percent of adults have discussed gun safety with their children and other relatives. Some of these conversations were sparked by the lockdown drills that many American children now practice at school to help them stay safe if an active shooter is on campus. Some parents are taking safety measures such as purchasing bulletproof backpacks for their kids to better protect them in a mass shooting situation. Up to 41 percent of teachers have attended gun safety and mass shooting training. This training does not teach them to use guns but provides them with skills that might help them save themselves and their students if a shooting occurs at their school.

Other Americans live in fear of being present during a mass shooting. Approximately one-third of US residents have stopped leaving home or avoid crowded public places because of fear of a mass shooting. Others continue to live as normal, though they may often think and worry about mass shootings.

Discourse

Many ideas have been proposed about measures that can be taken to end gun violence. One is to implement stricture regulations about gun ownership. This is most hotly debated in the United States, though other countries also discuss which laws should be instituted and would be most effective.

A common suggestion is to institute more robust background checks for anyone wishing to purchase a gun. While licensed gun dealers must perform background checks, they may miss red flags such as ongoing mental health problems. In addition, private people who sell guns and most online gun sellers do not have to conduct background checks. Expanding background checks to include more relevant information and applying them for all gun sales is one common reform that gun control advocates want to see implemented.

Making red-flag laws stronger has also been proposed. These laws would allow friends, family members, coworkers, and others to ask the court to take away a person’s guns temporarily if they may be a threat to themselves or others. While these red-flag laws will not stop every instance of gun violence, they enable people who know someone best to ask for help and protection. The person’s guns are usually returned after they seek help and convince the court that they are no longer dangerous.

Another change requested by gun control advocates is to treat gun ownership more like car ownership. People who want to drive need to pass tests. They must prove that they are skilled enough to drive safely. They are required to spend a certain number of hours behind the wheel before applying for a license. After this, they must prove to a licensed instructor that they are able to drive responsibly. Adding training and testing requirements for gun ownership might help people use and store their guns more responsibly. It might also limit the number of guns in circulation because many people would not have the time or energy to go through the licensing process.

Research has been conducted to back up the idea that these gun control measures would limit gun violence. However, until recently, research dollars were limited when it came to researching how and when guns were used and why people owned them. As of the 2020s, many studies were being conducted, including research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Over time, this research may give people the knowledge they need to decide which laws would be the most effective in combatting gun violence.

In 2024, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, declared gun violence a public health crisis in America. Dr. Murthy also recommended a number of preventative measures be introduced, such as the promotion of safe firearm storage, universal background checks, and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

About the Author

Sarah Winfrey earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 2001 and a Master of Arts degree in 2006. She has written analyses on a wide variety of topics, from personal finance decisions to drowsy driving. She works as a freelance writer, editor, and writing consultant.

Bibliography

Amnesty International. Gun Violence. www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/

DeLuca, A., and Jonathan Hart.(2022, December 7).Understanding American Gun Violence Part 1: The evolution of America’s relationship with firearms. Temple University — Temple Now. news.temple.edu/news/2022-12-06/understanding-america-relationship-firearms

Everytown for Gun Safety. (2023, February 13). Gun Violence in America. everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-in-america/

"Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America." Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/firearm-violence-advisory.pdf. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Fox, K.. (2019, August 6). How US Gun Culture Compares with the World. www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html

Fox, K. et. al. (2023, April 10). How US Gun Culture Stacks Up with the World. CNN. www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-comparison-intl-cmd/index.html

Gebelhoff, R. (2022, June 2). 6 Solutions to Gun Violence That Could Work. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/gun-control-solutions-that-work/

Gramlich, J. (2023, April 26). What the Data Says About Gun Deaths in the U.S. Pew Research Center. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

Halpert, M., and Brandon Drenon. (2023, June 1). How Gun Violence Is Reshaping American Lives. British Broadcasting Corporation. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65686152

Masters, J. (2022, June 10). U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons

Swanson, J., et. al. (2015, May). Mental Illness and Reduction of Gun Violence and Suicide: Bringing Epidemiologic Research to Policy. Annals of Epidemiology 25(5): 366–376. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4211925/