Living in the U.S. we live everyday hearing about a new shooting that happened last weekend, and it makes everyone wonder. What are our gun regulations, and how come it’s so easy to get one? What do other countries do to prevent what happens here in the U.S. so often?
Let’s start with the numbers, 64% of all homicides in the US were caused by guns, in Canada, it’s less than half of that, 30%, in Australia, 13%. In 2016, there were 33,594 gun deaths in total, about 14 thousand were homicides, 71 of which were mass shootings, and the rest were suicides. 46% of Americans are for stricter regulations on guns, compared to the 39% that are satisfied with the current laws, and the 9% that want regulations to be looser.
As you can probably see, guns cause a lot of deaths, and there is a wave of support to have stricter regulation on gun handling, and how we, as a country can prevent further tragedies from happening so often. Currently in Arizona as long as you aren’t a prohibited possessor (someone prohibited from possessing a firearm) and are over the age of 18 you may carry an open or concealed firearm without permit or any background checks (NRA-ILA). With regulation as lax as this, don’t be surprised when you hear that in 2015, Arizona was ranked the best state in the nation for gun owners, for the third year in a row. While this news was a delight to gun-advocates, skeptics saw this as Arizona being the place where criminals, or future criminals can easily access guns.
Out of the 60-70 million Americans who own firearms, a large sum actually do support tightening regulations on assault weapons, and a whopping 97% of gun owning households supports doing more background checks on potential gun owners. Tom Galinat, a 35 year old hunter and farmer who owns 9 guns is a speaker for a complete ban on all high-capacity weapons. Jonathan Leech, who is 56 and owns 10 guns, went to speak in front of Maine legislators to propose a bill that would take dangerous firearms away from people deemed unfit to possess such weapons.
To be continued, to read more, wait until next week’s post!