Need for Stricter Gun Laws in America

Jack Pinto, 6-years-old. Josephine Gay, 7-years-old. Dylan Hockley, 6-years-old. Mary Sherlach, 56-years-old. Grace McDonnell, 7-years old. These are the names of five of the 33,092 people who were killed by guns in 2012. In a country where there are more guns than people, it is tragically selfish that the mass shootings of students and innocent people are a fair compromise for having an unhealthy obsession with guns. It is long overdue that America imposes stricter gun laws. The United States should impose stricter gun laws because homicide levels due to guns are too high, guns are proven to not be efficient in deterring criminals, and the use of the Second Amendment to defend “rights” it not a logical reason in modern times on which to lean.
Where there

are more guns, there are more homicides.

This is seen across households, states, and countries. While a critic might point out that it would be expected that there are more gun-related deaths in the United States because there is a significantly larger population than other countries, that argument is simply not logical. The United States, with a total of 270 million civilian guns, has 88.8 guns per 100 people. The developed country with the second highest rate of gun ownership is Yemen, with only 54.8% ownership and 11.5 million civilian guns. The United Kingdom boasts a mere 6.7% civilian gun ownership rate and 6.6% of homicides committed with guns. Why would the United Kingdom have such a low gun ownership rate? The answer is simple: gun laws. Catalyzed by a few mass shootings, the United Kingdom enacted strict gun laws. In Britain, assault weapons and handguns are banned and the government is required to check the backgrounds of people who purchase other varieties of firearms. Legal firearms such as rifles and shotguns

appropriate for hunting and recreational shooting are exposed to periodic police inspections and intense questioning. Andy Marsh, the firearms director at Britain’s Association of Chief Police Officers stated that, “What we have in the UK not are significantly lower levels of gun crime, levels that continue to fall today. People say you can’t unwind hundreds of years of gun history and culture [in America],” he continued. “But here in the UK, we’ve learned from our tragedies and taken steps to reduce the likelihood of them ever happening again.” In the United States, federal law has limitations on short-barreled shotguns, machine guns, and silencers, requiring that consumers pass a background check, register the gun, and have a certain tax stamp.