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Why We Need Gun Control

4/28/2018

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The Parkland school shooting sparked a national outcry for gun reform. But legislative change has been needed for some time now. Here are some relevant facts about the state of gun violence in America:
  • The US makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, but holds 31% of global mass shooters.
  • According to the New York Times, from the Orlando shooting in 2016 until the Texas Church shooting in 2017, there were 555 mass shootings in the United States. A mass shooting involves four or more people injured or killed in a single event at the same time and location.
  • According to CNN, of the 30 deadliest shootings in the US dating back to 1949, 18 have occurred in the last 10 years.
  • Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population yet own roughly 42 percent of all the world’s privately held firearms.
  • A 2013 study, led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, found that, after controlling for multiple variables, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with a roughly 0.9 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate at the state level.
  • A 2017 study estimated that 42% of US gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check.
We are the only country in the world that treats gun ownership as a right and not a privilege. We are also the only country in the developed world that has this volume of mass shootings. These two facts are directly correlated. We need legislative change to end our country’s historical trend of mass shootings. As a 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found, new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to firearms can save lives.
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A History Lesson: Racism and Gun Laws

4/14/2018

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As a nation built on slavery, it should come as no surprise that racism is woven into our legislation. Since the founding of the United States, racism has been present in our country’s laws--and gun control is no exception. As we work to create positive, lasting change in gun reform, it’s important we remember the different impacts gun laws have had on people of color. Two pieces of legislation in particular, the Mulford Act and the Black Codes, highlight how intertwined gun control legislation was and is with racism. Louisiana Black Codes were a series of laws passed shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation, in which we saw some of the first racist gun control laws. Louisiana Black codes called to beat "any black carrying a potential weapon."  The Mulford Act was a California policy banning open carrying of firearms, written in response to the Black Panther Party’s  “copwatching” (a term for the Black Panther Party patrolling cops with guns to make sure cops weren’t abusing their power). One important connection that should be discussed in terms of  the racist history of gun control is the second amendment. The second amendment was written to protect citizens from a tyrannical government. With the history of black people in America, guns have played a big part because the government has always been tyrannical for them. The second amendment has been a right that has protected them from the government. In the high profile case of Dred Scott of 1857, a Supreme Court Justice stated that if blacks became citizens they would have the right to keep and bear arm which would lead to "insubordination."  Policies and cases like these cast a dark shadow over present day conversations of gun control. March for Our Lives has attempted to end our country’s chapter of racist gun control by including black voices like 11 year old Naomi Walder, but it is far from over.


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