8,631.
That is the total number of Americans killed by gun violence in the United States this year alone. It is estimated one in three people in this country knows someone who has been shot. On average, 31 Americans are killed every single day with guns. Of course, no one wants the country to be mired in international headlines about gun violence. The problem with the gun control debate in the U.S. is that core factions of the American electorate erroneously believe that the United States is exceptional in every aspect. What this debate lacks is the clear understanding that the United States is the only developed country on earth which still has a problem with rampant gun violence. According to a 2010 study, the U.S. firearm homicide rate is 20 times higher than the combined rates of comparable countries.
There have been too many horrific shootings to count in the last few years. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Sandy Hook. Charleston.
The list goes on and on, and grows by the hour. Last week's tragedy on live television in Virginia only highlights the point that something must be done. Of course, there will be those who echo National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre in saying that, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Unfortunately, what the wayward cowboy is forgetting in his fantasy of well-intentioned citizens, armed to the teeth, shooting at would-be criminals is that, according to a 1998 study in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, “Every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.” Having guns everywhere is not a way to make a place safe — this is precisely the reason why war zones are not noted for their safety.
There is one very simple solution to this problem, one that every other major developed country has discovered yet seems to be stuck in the political quagmire of the U.S. political structure: reducing the number of guns in the U.S. Conservatives conventionally argue that this will lead to good people not having access to weapons, as they are diverted to bad people. This is refuted in the strongest terms by a study coming from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. According to the study, “Strong regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers — defined as having a state law that required state or local licensing of retail firearm sellers, mandatory record keeping by those sellers, law enforcement access to records for inspection, regular inspections of gun dealers, and mandated reporting of theft of loss of firearms — was associated with a 64 percent less diversion of guns to criminals by in-state gun dealers.” Further, economist Richard Florida says that states with at least one major gun restriction law see drastically fewer violence-related deaths than states without those laws.
Inevitably, this column will incite clambering, saying that the left-wing conspiracy wants to take all of the guns away from everyone. There is no record of a credible politician in the U.S. ever making such a statement, and the hyperbole only serves as a further act of violence to the memories of those lost in the mounting epidemic that is gun violence in the U.S. What needs to be done is something supported by 90 percent of all Americans, supported by science and supported by a wide array of politicians on both sides of the aisle: Mandatory background checks on all gun purchases, with the aim to prevent felons and the mentally ill from obtaining weapons, should be the law of the land. For those who would claim that this would be an infringement of a large government on the populace, remember that the cost (medical, criminal and other) of all gun violence victims borne by taxpayers in the U.S. is estimated to be $229 billion every year.
If we want the U.S. to be seen as a beacon of hope, strength and security in the world, then we must not be condoning a system in which thousands of our own citizens are killed within our borders. In this circumstance, we should aim to be a little less exceptional, and a little more like our peers. Gun violence of this magnitude is a particularly American phenomenon, and it’s time to stop. People don’t deserve to live in fear. The numbers are absolutely staggering, and only idle chats seem to be happening at this point. If we don’t do something now, who will?
—Cory Alpert is a third-year sociology and Russian student.