GUNS in AMERICA (Video - Bloomberg)

Americans own more guns than anybody else on earth. Firearms are involved in the
deaths of more than 33.000 people in the U.S. annually.
Every time another mass-shooting occurs in the U.S. it sparks arguments over gun
ownership rights.

Here‘s the situation:

in 2017 pro-gun advocates got a boost from republicans gaining control of the white
house and both Chambers’ of Congress. A month later congressional republicans
rolled back a rule adopted by President Barack Obama in 2016 that was aimed at
preventing people with serious mental health problems from buying guns.
But that was just the most recent time Congress has dealt with gun restrictions. Back
in 2013 Congress rejected a bill to expand background-checks. This was just months
after a mass-shooting took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut, where 20 children were killed. According to the Pediatrics Journal, 25
children die from bullet wounds each week in the U.S.

Gun rules are largely determined by states. Since 2013, democrat lead states like
California and Oregon, have expanded gun restrictions.

But the majority of states have weakened restrictions. Many now permit guns in more
places like restaurants, churches, public buildings and even schools. Also, all 50
states allow people to carry weapons that are concealed from public view. And many
states have expanded rights to use guns as self defense.

The U.S’s original gun law is almost as old as the country itself. The 2nd amendment
right of the people to keep and bear arms was established in 1791 to allow states to
form militias to protect themselves against the federal government. In 2008 the U.S.
supreme court ruled that the amendment protected the gun rights of individuals not
just militias. As many as 310 million guns are now thought to be in private hands.

Here’s the argument: The national rifle association (NRA) and its alliance argue that
gun regulations only hurt law-abiding gun owners, because criminals simply ignore
them.

Since Congress led a ban on assault weapons, expired in 2004, violent crime in
America has fallen significantly. And fatal and non-fatal shootings have also
declined. A chart published by the Washington Post show staggering results:
Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres
during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun
massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up
again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase
in massacre deaths – til 2014!
However gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association oppose such bans. Not
only that most owners of such weapons are law-abiding citizens but also that the
overwhelming majority of gun homicides are committed with handguns, making the
impact of an assault weapons ban on the overall crime rate minimal.

Meanwhile gun control advocates say limiting weapons will drive down gun related
crimes. To prove their argument, they point to Australia, where strict gun ownership
laws were enacted after a historic massacre in 1996. Since then there have been zero
mass shootings! Firearms related death rates have plummeted.

The killers in recent incidents like Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs were
each able to walk into a gun shop in the days and months before their attacks, and
legally purchase their assault weapons and magazines after passing a standard
background check. Under an assault weapons ban, that wouldn't be possible.

While politicians try to loosen or to tighten gun laws from one administration to the
next, U.S. citizens continue to be caught in the middle of this legislative gun fight.

March for our Lives – Shooting

The most recent example how citizens are involved in this debate is for sure the
March for Our Lives. It was a student-led demonstration in support of tighter gun
control. It took place on March 2018 in Washington D.C. and over 800 sibling events
throughout the US and worldwide.
The March was mainly planned by the gun control organization NEVER AGAIN
MSD, which is also known as hashtags #NeverAgain and #EnoughisEnough.

MSD refers to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were
a mass shooting was committed on Feb 14, 2018. In that shooting 17 people were
killed, 17 people more were wounded. According to Fox News, with these figures the
Florida school shooting is among the 10 deadliest in modern US history.

Prompt after the shooting, survivors started a group on social media as a movement
“for survivors by survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting” using the hashtag
#NeverAgain. That expand to protests demanding legislative action to be taken to
prevent similar shootings in the future. It has vocally condemned US lawmakers who
have received political contributions from the NRA

What only started as a social media group reached indeed political dimension.
So here we have also a prime example what a powerful tool social media can be.
The leading figure after that shooting
Gun-Debate Arguments

Groups like the NeverAgain MSD propose solutions to avoid mass shootings e.g.

Improve gun control regulations at point of sale

Make it illegal for those under 21 to buy fire arms
Ban civilian ownership of assault rifles entirely

Pro-Gun groups like the NRA smacks down these proposals.

Con-Gun Advocats Pro-Gun Advocats

NeverAgain MSD, CNN NRA, President Trump

Arguments

Ban assault rifles like AR 15 – which is a

weapon of war, designed for maximum kill
Most crimes are actually committed with
handguns and you can look at the FBI uniform
crime reports on this and it’s barely 3%
homicides committed with so called assault
rifles.

At the moment we’re talking about school

shootings. An AR 15 is just a rifle. What makes the
difference is the color of it and what makes the
difference is the accessories that it has on it.

But somehow it has become the weapon of

choice But the firearm didn’t walk itself into school. I
wanna go back to that point of prevention. It was
talked about the point of sale. But it is important
to know that this individual had
the parents of this individual had made reports to
law enforcement saying that he had threatened
other people with a gun before and that he had
actually held a gun to others heads and that he
had access to guns.

Why was nothing done about that? Why did he

still have access even though law enforcement
knew that he had threatened classmates which is
a felony?
Purchasing a gun should be illegal for those Raising the age is not going to solve psychosis.
under 21
Young people should be able to defend
themselves: We don’t want anyone to have their
right to be able to defend themselves denied.
Even the young adults – we want them to be
able to protect themselves. We’re asking men
and women to go to a theater war but we not
gonna et themselves defend at home.

One last quick point: there are a lot of really

awesome law-abiding young men and women
who just enjoy hunting and should

Should Bump Stocks be banned?