Written by: Marvin Kimwon
Edited by: Giana Graziano
Gun ownership is not an unfamiliar notion to the American population as it has been present since the foundation of the country. With the second amendment granting citizens the right to bear arms, it seems as if the ownership of guns is embedded in the very fabric of this nation. While the right to bear arms is a fundamental principle protected by the Bill of Rights, with its ratification stemming all the way back to the eighteenth century, the actual regulation of guns in the United States did not commence until 1934, under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This first piece of gun control legislation, popularly known as the National Firearms Act (NFA), was an attempt to reduce the extent of gangland crimes, but as we look around today, it is clear the issue has far surpassed the contents of what this original act encompassed.
In modern-day America, shootings have become a normal occurrence in everyday life. This is evident amongst the vast majority of the American population, especially those living in areas of gun violence, as many have become desensitized to the idea of shootings, accepting them as something that comes along with living in America. This sense of normalcy has and continues to increase the purchase of guns as it not only becomes a popular and reasonable decision, but almost a necessity in the face of a country plagued with gun violence.
Pop culture in America also serves to glorify the concept of gun violence. With genres like gangster rap taking fruition amongst the younger generation, praising gun violence, instead of scorning it, has become the popular opinion. As I listen to my rap playlist, I can’t help but recognize the twisted yet normalized fact of committing violent crimes with the use of a gun. In fact, a study on the prevalence of violence in a popular hip-hop entertainment magazine unveiled that 35% of covers contained at least one violent category in text or graphics and nearly 80% of feature articles contained at least one violent category. This makes me wonder to what extent kids growing up listening to this type of music will become numb to the idea of carrying and shooting a gun. With the combination of loose regulation as well as the promotion of this type of behavior from all sorts of media outlets, it seems to me that the issue of gun violence is one that is here to stay, unless the American government and culture take drastic measures to discourage the use and carrying of guns.
The issue of gun control has gone beyond the border of this nation with international communities associating the United States with gun violence. This reminds me of repeated conversations that I have had with my grandmother who lives in South Korea. Having heard about the countless shootings in America via the news, she would always remind me that if I ever run into an incident where I find myself on the verge of becoming violent, the best option is to always calmly defuse the situation and walk away. These words of advice take their roots not only in morals and past experiences, but also in the fact that she is aware of the prevalence of gun use in America. Knowing this, she would remind me that I don’t know who is carrying a gun and thus getting into a fight in America is never a good idea, no matter the circumstances.
Having lived in America for over a decade now, the need to take preventative measures due to prevalent gun violence, which does not seem to be slowing down, is no longer news to me. As a matter of fact, the overall number of shootings that have left at least one person injured or dead in 2021 has already exceeded that of 2020 which was the deadliest year of gun violence in at least two decades. Despite the increase in gun violence, because gun laws are regulated on a state level, the laws pertaining to their control vary from state to state, making it difficult to make a collective change. Even with the evidently negative relationship between gun violence and gun laws, as shown by the fact that the ten states with weakest gun laws have three times more gun violence than the ten states with the toughest gun laws, the fact that the right to bear arms is a principle woven into the fabric of American culture prevents progressive gun laws from being enacted.
The United States’ loose regulation and culture of gun violence have also ended up affecting other countries via means of cultural diffusion and gun trafficking. In a recent case, the Mexican government sued seven US gunmakers and one US gun wholesaler, claiming that they bear partial responsibility for “actively facilitating” the trafficking of dangerous guns into criminal hands in Mexico. This has ultimately led to the empowerment of already powerful cartels as well as the exacerbation of Mexico’s homicide rates. While the issue of gun violence in America is one thing, the fact that we are dispersing this problem to other nations is unacceptable. By spreading gun ownership and violence to other countries, the United States not only creates a bad reputation for themselves but also facilitates violence on an international scale.
By enforcing gun control at a more serious level, the American government can effectively reduce incidents of gun violence by decreasing the likelihood of placing a gun in the wrong hands. In turn, the lower prevalence of guns will lead this specific topic to be discussed at a lower degree within American society, eventually shifting the modern American culture away from its appraisal of guns and allowing for a more peaceful nation as a whole.
[The views expressed in this article are those of the author and the author alone; they do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the first RULR Editorial Board and Rutgers University.]
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