Daily Opinion #7: Gun laws in the US need to be revised
train 'em young, cause, merica!
We seem to be facing quite a problem with gun violence in the US. Mass shootings are becoming more an more common, and it seems that the only solution is for law makers to revisit gun laws in the US.
Mass shootings are WAY more prevalent in the US than any other developed country. Why is this? I think it's because it's way too easy to obtain automatic weapons in the US. It's easy to purchase an assault rifle in the US. Automatic weapons are technically illegal for civilians, but most assault rifle's can be easily modified to be automatic. This is what's happening. The AR-15, AK47, Fn-Fal, etc can all be modified as fully automatic weapons. These weapons are allowed to be sold in the US because without fully automatic capability they are seen as the same as hunting rifles - similar or the same caliber, and single shots.
wtf, guys?
The truth is, these are not hunting rifles - they are assault rifles that are designed to have automatic capability and can be easily modified as such. I think some serious attention needs to go into this topic and gun laws need to be revised to make it much more difficult to obtain/build a fully automatic weapon.
So, you say, we'd still have shootings even if automatic weapons were difficult to obtain? Yes, probably so - however, we probably wouldn't see headlines about mass shootings killing and injuring 30+ people from a single shooter. Especially in schools. Thinking about it logistically, if the shooter did not have an automatic weapon, he might have been able to kill or injure a few people before the school's resource office (every school in the US has one, afaik) would have been able to take down the shooter or call for backup to help take care of the evolving situation.
I'm all for people having access to whatever they need, but, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves. I think having stricter gun laws is a fair trade off to protect our children from mass shootings.
If you truly want less guns, then threats of gun control legislation is not the way to do it. Look how gun sales have receded since Trump was elected and people felt gun control legislation was less likely.
Gun FOMO - happens any time people think the laws could potentially change. I think it would reach an equilibrium fairly quickly. One thing stands: if guns were more difficult to obtain, less kids would have easy access to them.
You're incorrect about automatic weapons.
There is a vast difference between fully automatic and semi automatic, and there are a number of internal modifications done by manufacturers to the design of civilian legal firearms to prevent turning them into fully automatic weapons.
And, to my knowledge, not one mass shooting has been committed with an illegally modified full auto.
There's also the fact that handguns are far more commonly used in homicides, at around 50 to 1, as compared to rifles.
There's no simple answer to mass shootings, but there are answers that don't involve banning an entire class of firearms.
Actually, the recent Las Vegas shooter used illegally modified fully automatic weapons. He killed 59 and injured 527. People can and will modify their assault rifles to be fully automatic.
Thanks for your comment though, much appreciated. Debate is better than silence on any topic.
What do you think is the best way to prevent future mass shootings?
No, he didn't. He used a bump stock, which is not illegal. And I don't mean "obscure and unregulated," I mean the ATF has specifically approved their sale and use as not changing the function of a firearm from semi automatic to fully automatic.
Bump firing isn't dependent on a $400 gimmick either, it's a simple technique that utilizes the recoil to facilitate the next trigger pull. It can be done with a pen, a shoelace, a belt loop, or basically anything.
There has never, to my knowledge, been a shooting that used an illegally modified fully automatic firearm. There have been two, that I'm aware of, actual full auto weapons used in crimes within something like an 80 year timespan.
As to preventing mass shootings, deterrence, enforcement, and response.
Deterrence being the removal of gun free zones, advertising the fact that teachers and staff can be armed, effective limiting of access to school grounds, national reciprocity of conceal carry licenses, a national level push for effective and economical training for willing carriers, and informing both a potential threat and their potential targets that the targets have been alerted to the possibility of a threat if red flags appear.
Enforcement being actually enforcing the laws as they stand, funding NICS, tie federal aid to state compliance with NICS reporting requirements, and identification and enforcement of prohibited possessor laws.
Response being an actual, credible, effective response in the event of an active shooter.
There's dozens of things that can be done that don't trample on second amendment rights.
There are many countries with proper gun regulations and crimes don't happen there. After what happened recently united states seriously need to revisit their GUN regulations.
It's completely out of control. yes.
Exactly it should be revised,I came across a article that claims these gun shoots tooks more than 11k lives over past 2 decades,these numbers surpasses the jihadi attacks too,I think USA should think of revising the gun laws seriously.ifvtge corrective measures won't be implemented it might cause big time to the most advanced country in the world.