Reasons Why Guns Should Be Banned from The Us

Not only the rate of crime is constantly increasing, but America stands first in the circulation of firearms among the world and they are actually encouraging the diffusion of guns as we can see in NationalObserver. “According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the vast majority of guns seized and traced in Mexico are of American origin.” Other statistics of the same website show that more than two-thirds of all the victims in US were killed by guns and that Americans are forty times more likely to encounter a gun than most other human being in the world and that is explained by the huge amount of guns circulating “In 2011, 270 million firearms were circulated in the U.S., almost 90 guns for every 100 people” and nowadays “There are an estimated 393 million civilian-owned guns in the United States. That translates to 1.2 guns for every man, woman, child and baby in America.” according to Brian Klaas, an assistant professor of global politics at University College London. These numbers show that America is at the center of production of firearms and proves the danger they are creating to the society when approximately half of the population own a gun.

Let’s now talk about how much America needs gun control because the laws and restrictions are not enough but we will first briefly introduce the procedure followed by American to own a gun. Generally, when someone wants to buy a firearm from a gun store they have to go through a quick background check. The seller will call the FBI that will eventually use a database called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to go through their customer’s records and then if he has a clear record, the purchaser can get his gun but if he’s convicted of felony or any type of crime, he won’t pass the background check. However, a lot of mistakes and clerical errors can pass because records of criminals are not always updated in the database of the FBI. For exemple, according to Euronews, the shooter Devin Patrick Kelley was able to legally purchase a gun from a gun store and so was able to slip through the cracks of the system because of their mistake. Moreover, background checks are only made when you buy a gun from stores, but if a person want to sell their gun, they could easily sell it to someone who has a criminal record and so guns are circulating between people without knowing who is using it for a bad or good intention. In fact, 37,5% of the offenders obtained their guns from the streets. In addition to that, each state has their own gun laws and “Out of 50 states, 35 do not require that gun owners hold a license, obtain a purchase permit, or register their weapons.”  

These data represents a big threat and danger to the society. In conclusion, theses statistics shows that the American government needs more strict laws about firearms and guns.

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