Why the Federal Government Needs to Take the Lead on Gun Control in the United States

Gun control in the United States is a divisive and incredibly important issue. The extremely high rate of gun violence in this country, in addition to the rash of highly publicized mass shootings in recent years, has made it clear that we as a nation have a serious problem with firearm violence. However, American society remains highly polarized on the issue of gun control largely due to the seemingly impossibly vast influence of the NRA. In addition, the structure of the American government has made enacting meaningful firearm legislation exceedingly difficult, since decisive action needs to occur at the national level and our political system is stacked against the accomplishment of such a feat. This paper will explore the evidence supporting the assertion that American firearm violence has reached epidemic proportions, examine the political and social reasons why reform efforts have failed, discuss the bureaucratic mechanisms standing in the way of progress on the local and federal level, and illustrate what actions need to be taken to curb the catastrophic plague of firearm homicides crippling our nation.

One need to look no further than the number of gun-related homicides in the United States to see that we as a nation have a serious problem with firearm violence. Max Fisher, of The Washington Post, in reference to the national rate of firearm-related murders, has stated that “The United States has by far the highest per capita rate of all developed countries. According to data compiled by the United Nations, the United States has four times as many gun-related homicides per capita as do Turkey and Switzerland, which are tied for third,” and “Americans are 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.” These sobering statistics alone indicate a need for immediate action in regards to the situation regarding easy access to firearms in America. A detailed examination of the legal status of firearms in the United States compared to the rest of the developed world also leads to a number of insights regarding the stark contrast between our nation’s legal approach to firearm ownership and that of the rest of the developed world, which directly leads to the devastating consequences described above.

The epidemic of gun violence in the United States is a direct result of our nation’s extremely loose gun laws. As stated in The New York Times, “Experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, using data from 26 developed countries, have shown that wherever there are more firearms, there are more homicides. In the case of the United States, exponentially more: the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns.” Quite simply, countries with strict gun control laws have much lower murder rates than the United States. America has the highest rate of firearm-related homicides in the developed world not because we are an unusually violent people but as a direct result of our almost complete lack of regulation over private ownership of firearms—a policy unheard of in the rest of the industrialized world. Unfortunately, despite the devastating effects of this policy, a substantial portion of the population adamantly believes that any regulation of firearms by the government is an affront to their personal liberties, making gun policy reform exceedingly difficult for American politicians.

Although widespread gun violence and mass shootings continue to ravage American society, the overwhelming majority of American citizens fail to support the sort of gun laws that are accepted as part of the fabric of life in most of the rest of the world. For instance, according to Lydia Saad of Gallup a recent poll found “public opposition to banning handgun ownership holding at a record-high 74%, identical to a year ago...Recent attitudes on this are markedly different from the 1980s when barely half of Americans opposed a ban on civilian handgun ownership. It is also a major turnaround from a half-century ago when only 36% opposed such a ban.” Clearly as the Republican Party has moved further and further to the right, exacerbated by the growth of movements like the Tea Party and the rise of the Religious Right, Americans have begun to adopt more hardline attitudes in favor of private gun ownership, even as the dire costs of such policies become increasingly clear. Of course, it would be remiss to discuss the attitudes of Americans toward gun policy without discussing the massive and growing influence of the NRA on the gun control debate in America.

The conservative views of the American populace and inability of politicians to take action towards gun regulation can be directly linked to the meteoric rise of the NRA as one of the most powerful lobbyist groups in Washington. The failure of the federal government to implement reasonable gun control restrictions can be directly tied to the influence of the NRA. Representative Jan Shakowski was quoted by Jeanne Cummings of CBS News as saying that “the NRA has pretty much set the agenda for the Congress.” The pressure put on the federal government by the NRA is one of the primary causes of the lack of action at the federal level in terms of gun control. This is devastating, particularly because not only have we seen how well nationwide gun control can work in other nations, but because we have seen how poorly local and state-level firearm restrictions work in the United States.

The inability to control firearms at the federal level means that gun control has often been relegated to the city and state level. Unfortunately, this proves to be ineffective, since local areas with strict gun laws are almost always bordered by areas with much looser gun laws, which means that despite the best efforts of those on the local level guns continue to flow into these regions. The best example of this would be Chicago, which has enacted some of the strictest gun laws in the nation but still has one of the highest murder rates. The New York Times has quoted Mayor Rahm Emanuel as saying that, “Our gun strategy is only as strong as it is comprehensive, and it is constantly being undermined by events and occurrences happening outside the city — gun shows in surrounding counties, weak gun laws in neighboring states like Indiana and the inability to track purchasing.” The issues that plague Chicago illustrate the folly of attempting to solve the gun control issue on the local level. No matter what legislation passes on the local or state level the fact remains that as long as there are areas with less restrictive gun laws firearms will continue to flow out of them. Only by legislating on a national level will we be able to begin to stem the tide of gun violence in the United States. We can even see the effects of incomplete and incomprehensive gun control on a global level.

Mexico has enacted strict firearm controls that have overwhelmingly failed to be effective thanks to the readily available guns directly across the border in the United States. Although it is illegal to own a firearm in Mexico the nation continues to be ravaged by gun violence. This is due to the fact that, according to Mark Stevenson of The Huffington Post, “About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States.” This example not only illustrates how our failure to legislate firearms in the United States had become a global problem but also further exhibits the folly of controlling guns in one area when nearby locales refuse to adopt serious controls. Only through comprehensive and absolute adoption of federal regulatory guidelines can the menace of gun violence be curbed. Fortunately, other nations have given us a blueprint as to how to extremely effectively regulate firearms on the federal level.

The actions that need to be taken at the national level in the United States are similar to those that have been utilized in Australia. According to The New York Times, in the aftermath of a mass shooting in 1996 the Australian government enacted “gun reform laws that banned assault weapons and shotguns, tightened licensing and financed gun amnesty and buyback programs,” which had the effect of reducing gun deaths “ 59 percent between 1995 and 2006.” These simple steps helped greatly reduce gun deaths in Australia and there is no reason to think that they would fail to do so here. Furthermore, these steps would be relatively financially painless to enact, and the cost of gun buyback programs could be funded by the revenues generated from increased fees generated from stricter gun licensing. In addition, the statistics make it clear that this program had immediate effects in lowering the firearm homicide rate, meaning that there was not a significant lag in time before the policy took effect. To make this happen the federal government needs to fight against the influence of the NRA and educate the American public on just how unacceptable our national level of gun violence truly is, but should they manage to do so there is a shining example already in existence of how to effectively curb gun violence.

The federal government in the United States needs to immediately take action to control firearm sales and ownership. The high rate of gun violence in this country makes it clear that our current policies fail to protect our citizens, and the much lower rate in countries with more stringent policies regarding firearms makes it clear that our uniquely permissive legal structure regarding firearm sales is to blame. Implementing such programs on a national level face roadblocks in the form of resistance by powerful lobby groups such as the NRA, and the widespread American love affair with firearms. While gun control at the local level has built more support, it has failed to be effective due to its inherently limited scope. A blueprint for a federal program that will definitively decrease the rate of firearm homicides has been created in several countries, most notably Australia, where the enactment of strict firearm legislation has directly corresponded to a dramatic drop in gun-related violence. Hopefully, the federal government will enact these measures before more lives are needlessly lost to the unnecessarily available firearms that permeate our society.

Works Cited

Cummings, Jeanne. “Why the NRA Gets Its Way.” CBS News. 10 Jun. 2009. 10 Nov. 2013.

Davey, Monica. “Strict Gun Laws in Chicago Can’t Stem Fatal Shots.” The New York Times. 29Jan. 2013. 10 Nov. 2013.

Fisher, Max. “Chart: The U.S. Has Far More Gun-Related Killings Than Any Other DevelopedCountry.” The Washington Post. 14 Dec. 2012. 10 Nov. 2013.

"In Other Countries, Laws are Strict and Work." The New York Times. 17 Dec. 2012. Web. 10Nov. 2013.

Saad, Lydia. “US Remains Divided Over Passing Stricter Gun Laws.” Gallup. 25 Oct. 2013. 10Nov. 2013.

Stevenson, Mark. "Mexico Drug War: 70 Percent Of Guns Seized Originate In U.S." TheHuffington Post. 14 June 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.