America has many issues, ranging from poor healthcare to racism and discrimination that has existed since the founding of this country. However, one issue that remains a constant problem in our country is gun violence. America has become a shooting range and anyone from young children to movie-goers can be killed instantly just for merely existing in America. For the next few paragraphs, I’ll give my take on gun violence, where I think the real issues stem from, and how we can prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent people in this country.
A large majority of the debate over gun violence is surrounded by this question: Do we need stricter gun laws, or do we need better healthcare? My answer to this question is both. I believe that to say it is only one side is not accurate and close-minded. I believe that if anyone is willing to kill hundreds of people for no reason, they’re mentally suffering, and they should not have been able to obtain a gun in the first place. For example, I could have access to a gun, but being that I don’t have extreme mental health problems I would not use it to kill innocent people. Let’s change it the other way. If I were someone who had an extreme mental illness, I would possibly use the gun, but if I had limited access to it, I wouldn’t be able to kill anyone. Now, this isn’t to say they can’t try to kill people with other weapons, but it wouldn’t be as easy. Try killing a group of people in a school with a machete. You’d most likely get caught before you’d get a chance to harm anyone.
Typically, the people who have committed these mass shooting have had mental illnesses. In a research study conducted by the Los Angeles Times, they have claimed that “59% of the 185 public mass shootings that took place in the United States from 1900 through 2017 were carried out by people who had either been diagnosed with a mental disorder or demonstrated signs of serious mental illness prior to the attack” (Mitzel 1). With that being said, over half of the people that commit these crimes are not mentally stable. So, how could it be merely just the guns that are the problem? One of the mental illnesses that these shooters had were Paranoid Schizophrenia, like James Holmes who killed twelve people at Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. In the case of other mental disorders, some of these shooters have Bipolar Disorder and severe depression, based on a research study conducted at Duke University. All these disorders causing them to have symptoms of hallucination, persecutory delusion, hearing voices, and frequent uncontrollable mood swings. Do their mental disorders excuse what they did? Absolutely not, however, it does play a role in what they did. This information cannot go ignored because it affects too many of the mass shooters. Imagine if they didn’t have these illnesses, only 41% of these crimes would’ve still happened. Is that still too high of a percentage? Yes, but it’s smaller than almost 60%. The smallest difference could mean the world.
In correspondence with mental disorders, there need to be stricter gun laws. Within this debate, it seems like a large majority of Americans do not know what that means. They believe that it would mean the government was coming after their second amendment, the right to bear arms, however, that is not the case. Stricter gun laws are trying to make it so weapons, like the ones used in these mass shootings, are not easily accessible to the public. A very popular weapon used in these mass shootings are AR-15 style rifles, like the one used by Adam Lanza in 2013 during the Sandy Hook School shooting. It was intended to be used by the United States Military as it is designed to have maximum wound effect. The rifle can travel nearly three times the speed of sound. In summary, it’s meant to do a large amount of harm. So, why are they so easily accessible to the public? What would an average, everyday person need with a rifle that can kill tons of people? That’s something I continuously ask myself. It seems common sense to me to remove assault rifles like that from everyday people. Guns can be useful in some cases where there is an intruder in your house or someone is trying to physically harm you. However, guns that turn schools into shooting ranges should not be used and should not be publicly distributed. I truly believe that removing these weapons from popular possession will decrease the number of mass shootings in America.
In the end, I do stand strongly with these ideas. I believe that mental health needs to be taken seriously in this country. As said before, over half of the mass shooters are mentally ill. We need to do better with helping those who believe that murder and senseless violence is the answer. We also need to get rid of these guns that some of these mentally ill people use. I believe that once these two actions are taken into place, the number of mass shooting in America will decrease. We are in a constant cycle of doing nothing. We see a shooting happen, we get upset, we call for change, nothing happens, and then we move on. Nothing gets done and it’s time that changed, because if it doesn’t one day someone you know, and love could be the victim of a mass shooting.
