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Jonah Mendoza

Professor Parker

ENGL-1302

11 August 2019

A Suggestion for Reducing Gun Violence in the US

When it comes to gun violence, mass shootings have become a set of horrifying events

that occurs regularly in the US. On August 3rd, there was a mass shooting at a local Walmart in

El Paso, Texas that had 22 people killed and dozens of people injured. Sometime after the El

Paso shootings, 9 people were found dead and 27 were injured by a gunman in Dayton, Ohio. In

response to these deadly shootings, the US President, Donald Trump says that the acts of

violence must be stopped including “gruesome and grisly video games that are now

commonplace.” (Draper, 6-7) Many officials in the US government including Trump have

claimed that violent video games have been the cause of gun violence in the nation because they

believe that it encourages young people to do aggressive actions. However, the US Supreme

Court has stated before that there was no clear evidence nor connection between the shootings

and video games. Due to the freedom of owning a firearm, almost any US citizen can possess a

gun and it can even be in the hands of an individual with threatening intentions. Instead of

putting the blame on a form of entertainment that doesn’t always cause harm within an

individual’s mindset, it would be better for the nation to start making changes to the gun policies

by limiting the possession of firearms.

The reason that gun laws should be stricter in the US is because it would be dangerous to

allow suspicious people to own weapons. Simply put, it would be wise to not allow people to
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own guns unless they follow some certain conditions so that firearms won’t be in the hands of a

future suspect of another shooting. Specifically, individuals who have bad intentions for making

use of firearms. Stores that sells armed weapons may never know what purpose or reason that

these people would want to purchase a gun. Other than being 18 years or older, there is no

verification needed before making a purchase which is something that people need to look out

for more often. For example, Japan and South Korea are known for having a small number of

shootings meaning that it is rare to have gun violence occur in both nations. While both countries

have managed to have a minimal amount of gun deaths, the cause of this gun control roots from

their history. Japan decided to limit gun control for the sake of security after World War II and

South Korea made strict gun regulations by confiscations after going through 3 decades of gun

violence. With the debate of gun violence in the US, articles commended South Korea as a role

model of gun regulation which can be a good place to visit if citizens want to avoid anything

related to weapons. Using video games as the blame for gun violence has become a controversial

reason for many US citizens and the gaming community especially for a few years now.

Following the president’s reasoning would not only bring harm to the gaming industry

dramatically, but it will also have no results or benefits if video games were to be removed for

the sake of gun regulation.

Using Japan as an example again, Japan’s gun regulation is allowing the citizen to own

an armed weapon by attending a class, pass a written test, and have a minimum of 95% accuracy

in the shooting-range test. When it comes to gun regulation, removing weapons from citizens

completely except for police officers can possibly cause an outrage due to the unfairness of

gaining possession of guns. The best method to make things fair for everyone is to have citizens

follow through a set of procedures in order to legally own a weapon which is like how Japan
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settled their gun policies. This is to prevent any young citizens to have access to guns easily and

use it for threatening purposes. Not only will this become more difficult for the younger

individuals to own a weapon, but this can also have a possibility of reducing school shooting

threats that tend to happen on a few occasions. While security is more alert for any potential

danger on campus, there are times when a student or visitor can carefully enter the campus with a

weapon.

In order to lessen the number of gun deaths in the US, the gun laws must be changed by

letting citizens legally own weapons under certain conditions. Due to the recent shootings in El

Paso and Dayton, government officials and President Trump still blame video games for these

events which is absurd to others. By countering their arguments, many people bring up better

solutions and suggestions to resolve gun violence along with the positivity that games can

provide among the people.

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Works Cited

Romano, Aja. “Millions of Gamers Manage Not to Shoot People. #VideoGamesAreNotToBlame

Is for Them.” Vox, Vox, 6 Aug. 2019, www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/6/20757050/video-games-

do-not-cause-gun-violence-meme.

Draper, Kevin. “Politicians Again Blame Video Games for Shootings, Despite Evidence.” The

New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent-video-games-studies.html.

Ferguson, Christopher J. “Analysis: Why It's Time to Stop Blaming Video Games for Real-

World Violence.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 5 Aug. 2019,

www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-why-its-time-to-stop-blaming-video-games-for-real-

world-violence.

“Mass Shootings Devastate El Paso and Dayton. Here's What We Know.” PBS, Public

Broadcasting Service, 4 Aug. 2019, www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mass-shootings-devastate-el-

paso-and-dayton-heres-what-we-know.

Weller, Chris. “Japan Has Almost Completely Eliminated Gun Deaths - Here's How.” Business

Insider, Business Insider, 15 Feb. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-how-japan-has-

almost-completely-eliminated-gun-deaths-2017-10.

“How South Korea Got Rid of Its Gun Problem: Ké Radar.” KOREA EXPOSÉ, 28 Feb. 2018,

www.koreaexpose.com/how-south-korea-got-rid-gun-problem/.