Some may say that gun laws are violating our Second Amendment rights, and that the Obama legislature are trying to take away the public’s guns. However, the President is trying to halt an extremely common American trend, and that is the death of American lives due to unpractical gun laws. If you truly think about the situation, the Second Amendment was created in a time of extreme pandemonium of fighting against the world’s best and most well equipped army, the British. I see the justification in that idea, but there is no impending doom or invading forces that threaten the American public anymore. Also, should the Founding Fathers and writers of the Constitution have predicted that one day we would have semi-automatic guns that can shoot a large amount of rounds before having to reloaded? The right to bear arms cannot be compared to modern day, as technology in warfare has evolved exponentially, and continues to evolve!. Without appropriate measures of safety taken, America will continue to be the inside, running joke of other developed countries, and even the non-developed ones. Without gun laws, and control there will be mass shooting after mass shooting in our country, and I will not stand for gun violence anymore.

The facts that gun control and regulation are clearly all there.I think that the time has truly come for change in the way our society is and the facts are clearly, all there. With a gun ownership rate of 89 firearms per every 100 resident owning at least one firearm(WSJ), is it truly a surprise that the mass shootings in the US are much more frequent than anywhere else in the world. The closest nation to our gun ownership rate would be the anarchic nation of Yemen, with a gun ownership rate of 55 firearms per every 100 residents owning at least one firearm(WSJ). Just for the sake of facts let’s examine this. The US amounts for about 5% of the entire world population of 7 billion, however the US somehow managed to account for a staggering 31% of the mass shooters in the world from 1966 through 2012(WSJ). 90 killers initiated mass shootings in the US more than 5 times the next closest country the Philippines. An extremely recent mass shooter, the one at Umpqua Community College, was armed with an arsenal of six guns and one flak jacket, or more commonly called, a bulletproof vest. For me it’s a simple question. How does one obtain that many firearms and create such an arsenal without anyone else knowing?! Looking at the facts again you will see that America is not the leader in fatalities per 100,000 residents. The country of Norway has the unfortunate title with 1.30 fatalities per 100,000 residents(WSJ). The reason for such an extreme number would be that Norway has only ever had 1 mass shooting, however it left 67 unfortunate Norwegians killed. Over the years from 2000-2014 13 Euro nations suffered a total of 23 shootings resulting in 203 deaths(WSJ). In the same period America suffered 133 shootings with a terrifying total of 487 deaths, thus having its .15 fatality per 100,000 rate(WSJ). Of the 166 shootings that took place in 14 years the US was responsible for 133 and the rest of the world accounted for 23(WSJ). The UK has some of the tightest gun laws in the globe with a .02 fatality rate(WSJ). In the UK most cops are without guns, and private gun licensing is is extremely regulated with 1.8 registered guns inside a country of 65 million people(WSJ). In March of the year 1996 in little Dunblane, Scotland a former scout leader walked into the elementary school. After being let in he shot and killed 16 young children and one teacher. Just weeks later in Tasmania, Martin Bryant brought with him two semi-automatic rifles and eventually ended up killing 35 people. It’s quite clear that America is not alone in this issue, but our government cannot seem to get it through their heads that there is a problem! Britain, Norway and Australia are just a few countries who acted quickly and decisively when it came to gun control legislation, but time after time our government has not acted.(Palazzolo and Flynn The Wall Street Journal).

So what was happening in the time of the Australian massacre in Tasmania? Well first the country has a frontier style history, similar to the US as a matter of fact. In Australia they created gun measures that have been effective for almost two decades, now. Australia had a situation extremely similar situation as we do right now, and that’s gun violence. On this topic I see the two separate nations almost the same same on this issue. After a decade of shootings over 100 people had been shot and killed. The shooting in Tasmania was not out of the ordinary except for the numbers. Bryant killed 20 people with only his first 29 shots fired(CNN). These deaths happened in a total of 90 seconds, and by the end of the massacre, 35 were dead and 18 severely wounded(CNN). Now this is where the two countries separate gun violence wise. Right after this shooting newly elected Prime Minister Howard banned rapid fire rifles and rapid fire shotguns. Owner licensing became extremely tight, the rest of the guns were given and registered to uniform country wide standards. Australia managed to do this by created a national buyback of all banned weapons, which were subsequently burned. Roughly 1 million weapons were burned, estimating to nearly a third of the countries supply(CNN)! This system was funded by a one time raise in taxes nationwide. No one else had tried this and it’s worked and it still working. After these precautions were made the risk of dying by getting shot in Australia dropped by an extremely significant 50%(CNN)! And now, almost 20 years later, it is still there. My question is, why doesn’t the United States government as a whole do something of this proportion?

Some say that background check may be the answer, however my dad happens to a business owner that operates in the freight forwarding business. He had this to say about background checks:

“After 9/11 the freight transportation industry became under increased regulation by the Transport Security Administration. All employees had to go through a thorough background check. We had one employee, a Latino, who completed all the background information sheets. These would include a social security number, green card number, address, names, the lot. All the documents were then sent to government for approval and a background check. About two days after being filed with the government the employee came to me and asked me a few questions about it. He then told me that all his documentation his social security card, his green card, were all counterfeit. He then said he was concerned, the employee then decided to leave been has how it being scrutinized by the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Immigration Department. Lo and behold, about a month after he had completed the documentation, we got a letter from the TSA and it said he had been approved. Approved with his counterfeit social and green cards, and his names were not going to add up with all those numbers, however he was approved. (Oct. 25)”.

Now according to the interview, with my dad, that man should not have allowed to continue living in the States. However, the impractical and dysfunctional government background checks, points to the conclusion that background checks don’t always work! There would need to be some type of medical records for background checks to work and at the moment hospitals are not freegiving with that information. If hospitals were to give records of mental insanity inmates then there might not be such a problem. But the truth of the matter is, that the hospitals in the US do not wish to release that information, and until then we must find another way to control the selling of guns to mentally ill people. I believe that until an extremely preppy, elite private school in Virginia, where senators and representatives children go, has a mass shooting then it will be a problem. Until then there will be no reason for senators and representatives have no use for such measures, and maybe if they feel the pain of losing a child to a shooter they will take a stronger stance on gun control.

Works Cited
Palazzolo, Joe. "U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings." WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 3 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
Smith-Park, Laura. "Australia: A Society That Brought in Tight Gun Controls - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network,19 July 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.