On October 1 2015, seventeen students at Umpqua Community College in Oregon became victims in a heart wrenching and growing epidemic: gun violence in America (OR Live). In the three years since the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, 972 mass shootings have taken place and more than 82,000 Americans lost their lives at the hands of gun violence but little to no action has been taken to curtail the rise of gun violence in the United States (Lopez 2015). While the problem of gun violence in America is complex, the solution is simple. Universal background checks and reinstating the ban on assault weapons are simple solutions that would curtail the rise of gun violence in America. Gun violence creates numerous undesirable social
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Ted Miller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and news magazine Mother Jones collaborated to analyze how much gun violence in America costs. Their data found that the annual cost of gun violence in the United States exceeds $229 billion annually for an average cost of $400,000 per shooting (“Gun Violence Costs…” 2015 ). $8.6 billion of the $229 billion are direct costs such as long-term imprisonment and health care. The other $221 billion is accounted for in indirect costs such as lost wages and quality of life. The $229 billion cost of gun violence annually is greater than the cost of obesity ($224 billion) and far greater than the revenue of Apple ($174 billion), which is the most valuable corporation in America (“Gun Violence Costs…” 2015). This data exemplifies that gun violence is not only a health crisis but also an astonishing economic …show more content…
Universal background checks would not only have saved Zina Haughton but thousands of Americas. In a survey of state prison inmates involved in gun offenses found just 13.4 percent had obtained their gun from a licensed seller (“Universal…” 2015). Furthermore, States that have enacted universal background check laws experience 48 percent less gun trafficking and 17 percent fewer cases of assault with a firearm (“Universal…” 2015). Moreover, of the 300 million guns in America, only 1.5 million are assault weapons, yet there use is widespread in mass shootings (Mantel 2013). Banning these weapons, which are neither widely used or need by the general public, would aid in solving the gun violence epidemic in America by curtailing the number and ease of mass shootings (Mantel 2013). While contentious, numerous studies state that the Assault Weapons Ban was effective. For instance, one study reported by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence states that the number of automatic weapons recovered from crime scenes involving a shooting decreased by at least 32 percent due to the assault weapons ban (“Assault…”
Ted Miller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and news magazine Mother Jones collaborated to analyze how much gun violence in America costs. Their data found that the annual cost of gun violence in the United States exceeds $229 billion annually for an average cost of $400,000 per shooting (“Gun Violence Costs…” 2015 ). $8.6 billion of the $229 billion are direct costs such as long-term imprisonment and health care. The other $221 billion is accounted for in indirect costs such as lost wages and quality of life. The $229 billion cost of gun violence annually is greater than the cost of obesity ($224 billion) and far greater than the revenue of Apple ($174 billion), which is the most valuable corporation in America (“Gun Violence Costs…” 2015). This data exemplifies that gun violence is not only a health crisis but also an astonishing economic …show more content…
Universal background checks would not only have saved Zina Haughton but thousands of Americas. In a survey of state prison inmates involved in gun offenses found just 13.4 percent had obtained their gun from a licensed seller (“Universal…” 2015). Furthermore, States that have enacted universal background check laws experience 48 percent less gun trafficking and 17 percent fewer cases of assault with a firearm (“Universal…” 2015). Moreover, of the 300 million guns in America, only 1.5 million are assault weapons, yet there use is widespread in mass shootings (Mantel 2013). Banning these weapons, which are neither widely used or need by the general public, would aid in solving the gun violence epidemic in America by curtailing the number and ease of mass shootings (Mantel 2013). While contentious, numerous studies state that the Assault Weapons Ban was effective. For instance, one study reported by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence states that the number of automatic weapons recovered from crime scenes involving a shooting decreased by at least 32 percent due to the assault weapons ban (“Assault…”