On May 6, a 33-year-old man shot and killed eight people, including children, in a shopping center in Allen, Texas.
While the shooter’s motive remains unclear, US police said he had ties to the neo-Nazi scene. Only a few days prior, in a separate incident, a Texas man fatally shot five neighbors after being asked to stop shooting in his yard.
These very reports are merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to shootings. According to the Gun Violence Archive, an average of 55 people are shot every day in the US. Whereas some guns are fired with the intent to kill, other incidents are mere accidents. Not long ago, a US teen was shot just for wringing the wrong doorbell.
The Gun Violence Archive reports that as of May 11, 2023, a total of 15,170 people were either intentionally or unintentionally killed by firearms, or committed suicide using a gun. The organization puts the number of mass shootings, defined as incidents in which at least four people are injured or killed, at 202.
The US, however, is not the only country affected by gun violence. Recently, two mass shootings occurred in Serbia, and a recent shooting in Hamburg has reignited the debate around stricter gun laws in Germany.
Which Measures Can Prevent Shootings?
After the recent Texas mall shooting, US President Joe Biden called for tougher gun laws and a ban on the AR-15 rifle, which was used in this latest mass shooting and in many previous incidents. So far, however, his efforts have been blocked by the Republicans.
Scientists disagree on whether tougher laws would actually bring down the number of shootings, as one might expect. While experts do see a correlation between stricter laws and the number of mass shootings in different US states, research assessing which laws are truly effective is still ongoing. This research field has gained momentum since Biden took power but is still massively underfunded.
Rand Corporation scholars have studied the effects of various different laws and evaluated studies on this subject. They found that only one law, namely a ban on high-capacity magazines, had a measurable effect on reducing the number of shootings. High-capacity magazines can hold more than 20 handgun rounds and more than ten rifle rounds.
The researchers found that the evidence regarding the effectiveness of other measures — such as imposing a minimum age for owning guns, banning violent individuals from possessing firearms, or conducting general background checks — was inconclusive. Rand Corporation researchers said there was inefficient data to draw any conclusions in this regard.
What’s more, they said all laws and regulations would need to be monitored for compliance — a point that is also raised by critics of stricter laws in Germany. Such monitoring, experts say, would be difficult and time-consuming.
Ubiquity of Guns is a Problem
Other experts, however, see a clearer link between legislation and levels of gun violence.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions in Baltimore, Maryland, for instance, compiled data from several US states with varying gun laws spanning a period of 30 years. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Center did, however, tell US radio broadcaster NPR that it’s “a really hard and, frankly, inexact science.”
The comparative study still found three measures that were especially effective in reducing gun violence: issuing gun licenses, banning high-capacity magazines, and banning semiautomatic weapons, which can fire many rounds and kill scores of people.
Other experts are convinced that the availability and sheer quantity of guns in the US play a key role. Political scientist and criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon University told DW:
I think the explanation is simple: the overwhelming availability of firearms in the US compared to other countries. That’s the only credible explanation. Virtually all of these mass-killing events are with firearms.
It’s impossible to know the exact number of guns in the US, however, as it’s not mandatory to register firearms. However, estimates based on surveys and sales data paint a grim picture. According to the Statista Research Department, around 45% of US citizens surveyed in 2022 said there was at least one firearm in their household.
German arms manufacturers, meanwhile, are earning a tidy sum selling guns to US buyers. Companies like Heckler & Koch, for example, are well-respected in the US and also often represented at National Rifle Association (NRA) meetings.
According to recent revelations by the German daily Tagesspiegel and public broadcaster ZDF, the German Economic Ministry even organized and partially funded a booth for German weapon makers to exhibit their guns at the world’s largest firearms trade show in the US.
After decades of supporting Germany’s firearms industry abroad, the ministry will end the practice this year.
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In the USA, because we have so many guns (more guns than people), there is no realistic way to reduce our gun count (short of draconian measures). Unless and until the 2nd amendment to our Constitution is changed or repealed, or given a very different interpretation by our Supreme Court, every US citizen has the right to own as many guns as they wish, with some very limited exceptions.
The most important thing that the US could do, in my view, is to:
1. make licensing mandatory, I believe the courts will allow this as a reasonable regulation of a right
2. strengthen background checks when issuing gun licenses, and use the same criteria as “Red Flag” laws to prevent felons and mentally disturbed persons from getting a license.
3. greatly increase the penalties for gun possession by anyone prohibited by rules in #2 above.
I grew up in the 1950’s in a rural area in the US midwest where the start of “deer hunting season” was practically a week-long holiday from attending high school. Almost every family owned guns, primarily rifles for hunting. Murders involving guns were things that happened elsewhere in big cities.
I would guess that well over 90% of US gun owners consider themselves people who would only use their guns in a responsible manner, such as self-defense against an armed robber. If we could get the left and right wing political parties to look at this rationally, the only good solution for the US is to keep guns out of the hands of those who are not responsible people. How hard is that to defend? Does the right wing really want nut jobs to own AR-15’s?
PS Much of the bad situation in the US is due to the vast amount of money that gun manufacturers have given to the NRA and right-wing parties. Eventually, they achieved their main goal when the cumulative effect of all that money bought them enough Congressional votes to appoint enough right-wing Supreme Court judges who finally ruled that under the 2nd Amendment, gun ownership is one of our top individual rights, subject to very limited regulation. If and when the left can get a more balanced court, this ruling could be overturned or revised, to allow cities and states to pass more reasonable regulations.
That’s my two cents today, hope it helps illuminate the US situation!
The answer is simple, where gun laws are strict e.g. UAE, UK and Japan, there is little to no gun violence. Where law are lenient or not implemented and anyone can access firearms, there are astronomically higher number incidents of gun violence .