Erny 1

Trey Erny

Core 115

Professor Albaro

04/26/2021

Gun Violence in America

“The U.S. has averaged more than one mass shooting a day this year”, (Brewster, 2021).

Gun violence in America has been rising every single year. According to the Gun Violence

Archive 2021, 14,309 people have died this year due to gun violence. After so much

catastrophic loss and hurt guns have caused, can we still sit here and do nothing about it? The

answer is no. Today I will be talking about some of the worst gun related catastrophes and ways

that we can work together to stop gun violence in America.

On October 1, 2017, fifty-eight people were killed and over 850 more people were

wounded when a gunman opened fire at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. “The

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department found twenty-three guns and thousands of rounds of

ammunition in his hotel room”, which was a high-level suite that overlooked the festival (Kieran

Corcoran, 2019). The gunman, Stephen Paddock, fired from his hotel window for nine to eleven

minutes. The police NEVER found any type of motive for the attack.
 Erny 2

Pulse, a large gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was holding a Latino-themed event with

over three-hundred people inside. Minutes later, dozens were dead, injured, and confused. “‘He

had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance,’ said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next

to her get shot, ‘I just tried to get out of there’” (bbc, 2016).

The gunman had an AR-15-type assault rifle AND a handgun. He and the police exchanged

gunfire multiple times before the police were able to take him down, after three whole hours of

panic and confusion. By the end of the shooting, fifty people had died and over fifty-three

people had been injured. The police say that it was a religious, hate-induced, attack.

Why do these shootings continue to happen? What do we have to do to make them

stop? Dr. Adam Lankford, from the University of Alabama has been studying mass shootings for

years. He said, “I found that despite the fact that we have less than 5% of the world’s

population, we have about 30% of the world’s public mass shooters. That’s a finding that I
 Erny 3

actually even replicated using data collected by some skeptics”, (Gauntt, 2021). A few states

have “red flag laws”. These laws give family members or law enforcement the right to remove

guns, temporarily, from a person who could possibly be a danger to themselves or to others. In

Alabama, it is currently illegal for domestic abusers and people who have committed violent

crimes to own guns. But, some people say that the law needs “more teeth to include more

situations”, (Gauntt, 2021). Lankford also found that the media can play a big part in bringing

DOWN the numbers of mass shootings by giving less publicity to the shooters. After the recent

strand of mass shootings in the U.S., President Joe Biden announced that he is calling for a

national red flag law.

We need gun safety. It seems like a simple task, but in reality, it isn’t. There are

numerous ways and safety precautions that we can take in order to accomplish gun safety in the

United States. Gun safety simply means to “reduce the imminent risk of lethality though

sensible gun laws and a culture of safety”, (Prevention Institute, 2021). With that, we need

sensible gun laws (which reduce easy access to dangerous weapons) and we also need to

establish a culture of gun safety. In order to create a culture of gun safety, we need to; reduce

firearm access to youths, make sure that there is acceptable oversight over the marketing and

sales of guns and ammunition, engage responsible gun dealers and owners in solutions, insist

on mandatory training and licensing for owners, and we also need to require safe a secure ways

to store guns. When people hear about gun control, most often think that we are trying to get

rid of guns in total, which is not the case. Our goal is just to make sure that we can have control

over guns in the safest possible way that ensures the safety of people in the United States.
 Erny 4

According to preventioninstitute.org, “Underlying contributors to gun violence:

systematically reduce risks and increase resilience in individuals, families, and communities''. In

order to continue to stop the problem of gun violence in the United States, we need; public

health solutions (which means that we need to recognize gun violence as a critical public health

problem), comprehensive solutions (like supporting community planning of community safety

plans that include intervention and prevention), and trauma, connection, and services (we need

to expand access to high quality social, emotional, and mental health supports and address the

impact of trauma).

Like I have said before, there are a lot of steps in order to ensure gun safety. Along with

everything else, we need to ensure that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

and others have the resources to study this issue and provide science-based guidance and

information. We also need to be able to establish a comprehensive health system in which

violence prevention is a health system responsibility and imperative. In order to continue and

evolve these important steps, we need to learn, innovate, and increase impact through research

and practice. That includes; community healing (preventing community trauma), mental health

and wellbeing (invest in communities to promote resilience and mental health and wellbeing),

support healthy norms about masculinity (explore the pathways between gun violence and

harmful norms that have been about maintaining power and privilege), impulsive anger

(explore the links between anger and gun violence), economic development (reduce

concentrated disadvantages and invest in employment opportunities), law enforcement

 Erny 5

violence (establish accountability for sworn officers and private security), and technology

(advance gun safety and self-defense technology).

Obviously, this is not possible all at once. But, if we start now and work together, we can

finally see justice against gun violence in the United States. A lot of steps are needed and in

order to achieve as much safety as possible, we need to master these steps. In conclusion, gun

violence is an ongoing problem in the United States. It has caused thousands of deaths and

injuries and we can always do more to stop it. In order to achieve justice, we have to work

together to stop gun violence in America.

 Erny 6

References

Abadi, M. (2019, August 05). 18 of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history. Retrieved
May 05, 2021, from
https://www.businessinsider.com/deadliest-mass-shootings-in-us-history-2017-10

Brewster, J. (2021, April 16). More than one mass shooting per day has occurred in 2021.
Retrieved May 02, 2021, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/04/16/more-than-one-mass-shooting-per-da
y-has-occurred-in-2021/?sh=cff855a64932

Gauntt, J. (2021, April 15). Why does the U.S. have so many mass shootings? Retrieved May 05,
2021, from https://www.wbrc.com/2021/04/15/why-does-us-have-so-many-mass-shootings/

Gun violence facts & figures. (n.d.). Retrieved May 02, 2021, from
https://socialjusticeresourcecenter.org/facts-and-figures/gun-violence/

Gun violence must Stop. Here's what we can do to prevent more deaths. (2021). Retrieved May
05, 2021, from
https://www.preventioninstitute.org/focus-areas/preventing-violence-and-reducing-injury/prev
enting-violence-advocacy

J. (n.d.). Gun violence Prevention & justice reform. Retrieved May 02, 2021, from
http://www.joycefdn.org/programs/gun-violence

Kieran Corcoran, S. (2019, January 29). The FBI has closed its investigation of the Las VEGAS
mass shooting that killed 58 people and injured hundreds MORE. here's exactly how the
nation's worst modern gun MASSACRE unfolded. Retrieved May 02, 2021, from
https://www.businessinsider.com/timeline-shows-exactly-how-the-las-vegas-massacre-unfolded
-2018-9
 Erny 7

Orlando nightclub SHOOTING: How the attack Unfolded. (2016, June 15). Retrieved May 05,
2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36511778