The Safest Imaginary Room
If you were to walk into a room- would you feel safer if everyone in there had a gun, or if nobody had one? Gun rights vs. gun control: who’s right?
When I tend to ask the question “Would you feel particularly comfortable if you walked into a store, and suddenly knew every single person in there was carrying a gun?”, the response for nearly everyone comes out as ‘no, I’d get the heck out of there’. Even for gun rights supporters, it’s sometimes scary to put into perspective just how many firearms are circulating throughout the USA. The Washington Post estimates there are “40 million more guns than people”- that means that it would be possible for every single American to be armed right now, and that imaginary store full of imaginary people carrying a lethal weapon, is not a far shot from reality.
Even so, there’s still a lot of debate between what should be done about the gun control problem the United States is facing, and even deciding if it’s a problem at all. Because of this, I interviewed two different people: a pro-gun conservative and a gun-control supporter. (And quite a few other people in between).
GABE'S SIDE
So let’s start off on the far right. Gabe, a sophomore at Poudre High School, is one of the few students in IB whose family voted for Trump. He considers himself to be a conservative on the political spectrum, a heavily religious person, and a gun fanatic. Supporting a party that “focuses more on self-protection and self-preservation than equality” is what being a conservative means to him.
Why? As he told me, he’s been heavily influenced by his parents, and his father is an ex-police officer. His family owns a bullet company since he was seven years old. He’s grown up with guns his entire life in a ‘conservative’ community.
For Gabe, guns are awesome. Guns represent America. “I love guns. They’re fun. Owning and using one is an exhilarating experience, the kind you don’t get from anything else. It can give people the sense of power and control.” Shooting, to him, is a ‘sport of skill’, because to be able to use a gun you need to be able to “control your body, your breath and your mind.” Guns are calming, he tells me. “you wouldn't think shooting wild things is calming, but it is, because of the mental preparation and being focused on getting something as accurately and quickly as you can.” He goes regularly to shooting ranges and competitions with his family, and believes hunting should be accepted as a sport and as a need for some families that hunt. This can be confirmed by a UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, who says “Firing a weapon triggers the same chemicals in the brain as riding a roller coaster: endorphins and adrenaline”, which would explain the exhilaration behind shooting firearms.
But that’s not the only reason a lot of people own guns. In the United States, more than 63 percent of Americans feel safer if they own a gun- and this is one of the biggest arguments pro-gun civilians have. “I've always been under the impression that it’s better for you to have a weapon if someone’s coming after you instead of being defenseless”, says Gabe. “Where I live it takes police 15 minutes to get to my house, so by the time something might actually happen you’d probably be dead in worse case scenarios. I’m also a pretty big dude, but there’s still people who could harm me even without a weapon, even scissors could be deadly.” For many people, using a gun for self-defense isn’t something that sounds like a good idea, because of how dangerous they are. But, as Gabe says, “if you know how to use it, it’s just a reassuring thing; you understand that it can be dangerous and potentially life threatening, but you can protect yourself and others from harm.” It’s also interesting to notice that owning a firearm to protect yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll use it against your aggressor. The Violence Policy Center provided that in 2012, there were only 259 self defense gun-related homicides, even though that same year there were 1.2 million violent crimes that could have accounted for potentially using a gun to shoot someone in a self-defense response.
But what about suicides? Around half of suicides are caused by guns. What can be said about that? In the US, it’s so easy to simply find a shop that sells guns, get one, and perhaps one day decide to take your life.
Background checks, however, are a potential solution for both suicides and homicides. But this doesn’t always have a positive response from 2nd Amendment rights supporters, because it’s considered an invasion of privacy. But Gabe is “totally okay with background checks”, he says, “it’s just that we have a faulty system because it can go around things. Just because someone has a specifically clean record doesn't mean that they aren't capable of killing themselves, or others, regardless of whether it’s with a gun or any other thing they have access to that may turn into a weapon. The main argument [gun control supporters have] is that people who are going to harm others, especially those who are mentally ill, always have ways of obtaining guns without background checks- and that is 100 percent true.” However, it’s also true that many 2nd Amendment supporters do believe in background checks, contrary to common belief. Polls taken by Republican Frank Luntz, as posted by the Atlantic, say that “the majority of NRA members and gun owners are in favor of gun safety regulations such as requiring background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm, and stricter rules regarding who is allowed to have a concealed carry permit. It's the outspoken fringe groups that keep common-sense gun safety laws from being passed.” If background checks will reduce the number of suicides and homicides in the United States, then it should be something nationally implemented, or ‘any other sort of protection the government could provide’, says Gabe. There are other ways of preventing suicides and promoting safe gun use, and that’s having other requirements, like license and age limit. Gabe agrees to the minimum age limit-18 to buy a rifle and 21 to own a handgun, but he doesn’t agree with having to get a license that costs so much work to obtain.
But what about teaching young children about guns?
Even though there’s an age limit to when you can actually buy one, there’s not a single comment on the violent video games that children as young as eight years old can play, or if living in a household with guns may influence kids to become violent adults. “Violent videogames are actually positively influencing people to not be violent, it gives people an outlet … I play videogames a lot and you can get mad, but you’re not thinking ‘oh, I’m doing this to kill ‘so and so person’’, you’re thinking, ‘oh, I have an objective in this game and I’m having fun.’” Gabe says that it hasn’t affected him at all to grow up with guns, and has not, in any way, made him more violent.
As of all, Gabe claims that guns are fun. They make him feel safer, even if they were to be implemented in school. (Although “theoretically, it would be safer if nobody had a gun at all instead of allowing that most people have one, but it’s technically impossible for nobody to have a weapon because anything can become dangerous.”) He wants others to realize that “it’s not the people that love guns that are committing the crimes. It’s that ‘one apple ruins the whole barrel’; where one person commits a terrible crime and then it gets brought back on the entire gun community when it’s not our fault.” It’s not owning a gun, it’s who owns it. Of course, Gabe realizes that “your viewpoints and who you are are definitely affected by how you grew up and where you were born. Everyone has their opinions, and everyone is going to have a prejudgement, biased information, and a one-sided view. But sometimes people don’t necessarily know a lot and have no experience, so they can’t understand some of the opinions a different person may have.”
AVERY’S SIDE
On the other hand, Avery does not support guns in the same way Gabe does. She has a family in rural Arkansas that enjoys shooting guns. Every time they’ve gone, she said she “detested the sound of it and the atmosphere of tension it created around the house.” She insists that “People in my life have had the idea that guns are just something to play around with, but to me they are far from a joke.” This tends to be a common perception, since 66 percent of people use their guns in part for target shooting and entertainment, shows a Gallup research.
Unlike her family and Gabe, Avery doesn’t see guns as something that can be used as entertainment, nor as a security measure. Guns don’t make her feel safe. Instead, she says, “they just give an illusion of safety and are actually quite dangerous and not at all worth the few people they have protected when measured against those they have hurt.” In 2012, as mentioned before, there were only 259 justifiable gun-related homicides used in self defense, but in 2014, the total number of deaths caused by a gun was 10,945 people, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The comparison is huge.
These numbers include both deaths and suicides, and as Avery sees it, murders are definitely caused by how easy it is to obtain a gun. “100% yes”, she says, “If guns weren't so easily obtainable with many people purchasing them with a permit, we could greatly decrease the number of deaths by gunshot.” “America’s gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than those in other comparable nations”, reads a fact from The Trace Survey, comparable to the fact that gun ownership is 112.6 guns per 100 residents, as shown by The Telegraph.
“Suicide, however, is a bit different. While it's true many people do attempt suicide by gunshot there are many other suicide options that people also turn to such as overdose and hanging”, says Avery. According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, in 2015 firearms accounted for 49.8 percent of suicides, whereas poisoning and suffocation were much less, with 15.4 and 26.8 percent respectively. “But considering the fact that a gunshot is the most lethal method of suicide, the rate of deaths could still be lowered if guns weren't so easily attainable”, continues Avery. If all firearms were taken away, it could be assumed that suicide could go down by at least half.
But the reason guns are an ‘illusion of safety’ to Avery is because, as she says, “you have the ability to feel as though you are armed and cannot be touched. This, however, is untrue because while you may have a weapon on your person, someone else may as well- making them just as dangerous. Not to mention the fact that many people don't have the time to reach for their gun until they have already been attacked…”
So how would we deal with the homicide and suicide numbers in the United States due to firearms? Ban guns? Do check ups? Reinforce gun laws? How? Avery calmly answered my questions, stating, “Banning guns completely would be almost if not entirely impossible.
I believe that we need a crack down upon gun control similar to the one that was put in place in Australia in the 1990s after a horrific mass shooting. There, not only did the laws stop mass shootings and murder, but the rate of suicide lowered as well.” She sent me a link of a CNN article of “happened when Australia introduced tight gun controls”, which explains how, after a madman shot 20 people in less than 90 seconds on a touristic site known as Port Arthur, Tasmania, in April 1996, Australia decided to take drastic gun measures. As the CNN article says, “Rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were banned, gun owner licensing was tightened and remaining firearms were registered to uniform national standards.” Since then, “the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50 percent”, and an Australian University study showed that suicide rates dropped 80 percent.
This leads to some controversy because although it may seem like an ideal and rapid decision for Australia, its population is much smaller. Both Australia and the United States are almost the same in territorial size, but “the whole of Australia has about the same number of people living in it as the state of Texas”, says an About Australia site. Also, the United States has a copious amount of firearms compared to what Australia had then.
Another option, which is the same Gabe agreed with, was the implementation of background checks. Background checks would be ideally placed to view every gun purchaser’s personal history, to check for any felonies or disabilities that may impede them to obtain a gun. Even so, many people view it as an invasion of privacy and security. Avery’s expresses her view by telling me, “the thought of handing someone a gun without doing a background check should terrify you more than the thought of them walking around with a gun. Yes, [background checks] are an invasion of privacy, but you shouldn't be worried if you have nothing to hide.” Also, background checks are already present in job applications, school entries, etc.
However, there are some conservative claims that declare that gun control does not prevent murder or attacks used by guns, unlike the case of Australia. These claims support the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear a gun. However, does the Second Amendment still apply to modern day and does having a gun really protect citizens from potential foreign invasions? Avery says no, that “when the second amendment was written into our constitution it was necessary, but is now outdated and simply not something American citizens need.” But people still believe that by having gun laws, they’d be giving too much power to the government. “In all fairness I see where people are coming from with that point of view, but isn't it okay to give the government some extra control if it means less Americans dead? Isn't that what conservatives are constantly talking about? The want to put Americans first and keeping them safe?”, Avery replies passionately to that statement. Big questions that we should start thinking of the answers to if an agreement to what should be done with all the guns circulating the U.S. is to be made.
“Gun control isn't me or anyone else trying to take your rights, just simply us trying to help protect the hundreds of people who are killed each year because of guns and the lack of restrictions on them”, Avery ends with.
...As the random guy in between said, “it’s a real problem that’s affecting the United States and we need to get people to agree on what to do. Stop quarreling, sit down and talk. Heck, owning a gun is anyone’s decision, but it can’t be any psychopath who has one, either.” Perhaps ‘Murica needs its guns, but it doesn’t need any more corpses.