Final Speech Ryan Sperry

Gun violence in America is such a large and debated issue that the people of this country have almost grown numb to it. When we hear news of gun violence or a mass shooting in the news or on our phones, it almost seems natural. As if that is how our country is supposed to be, and we as americans have just accepted it.

Gun violence in America is an epidemic. America owns more guns per capita than any other country by a significant margin.  A Pew Research Center study shows that about four in every ten American owns a firearm, and approximately 96 Americans are killed by guns every day. The U.S is an anomaly when it comes to gun violence and mass shootings. A country that makes up less than 5% of the world's population, holds 31% of the worlds mass shootings. These disgraceful statistics show one thing. This country needs change.

Australia, in 1996, passed the National Firearms Agreement, after a mass shooting that occured in Tasmania that year, by a 28 year old man who open-fired a semi-automatic rifle into a crowd of people at a popular tourist spot in Port Arthur, Australia, killing 35 people and wounding 18 others. The agreement banned specific semi-automatic weapons, self-loading rifles, and it imposed more strict registration and licensing requirements. The agreement also included a government buyback program. Australian citizens sold roughly 640,000 prohibited firearms to the government and surrendered another 60,000. In the years following the agreement Australia has had no mass shootings. In 2014 Australias murder rate decreased to less than 1 killing per 100,000, which is roughly ⅕ that of Americas. The success that the program had would be difficult to replicate in America, but it goes to show that if a country and its elected officials put their efforts into an issue, a solution and compromise can be made. If American legislators could come together and agree on something as simple as tougher registration and licensing requirements then lives could be saved as a result.

The gun control debate in America has two far different sides. The argument that guns don’t kill people, and that people kill people has become stale. It isn’t a coincidence that the country with the most guns per capita also happens to have the most mass shootings. My moms family lives in Japan. A country where in 2014 saw just 6 gun related deaths. In the U.S there were 33,599 gun related deaths. Even Japanese law enforcement rarely uses firearms. Only six shots were fired by Japanese law enforcement nationwide in 2015. The police officers are forced to learn martial arts and hand to hand combat. Lain Overton, the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, says that “If you have too many police pulling out guns at the first instance of crime, you lead to a miniature arms race between police and criminals. He also states that, “The moment you have guns in society, you will have gun violence, it's about the quantity. If you have very few guns in society you will almost inevitably have low levels of violence.” As profound as that sounds it’s the truth. Countries that have less guns per capita tend to have less gun violence or gun related homicides.

America's culture makes it difficult to pass any legislation relating to gun control. The mindset of many Americans is often backwards, the belief that arming more people will keep the country safer is a false idea. In a poll taken by the Washington Post, 51% of Americans believe that having a firearm in their house makes it a safer place to be. This misconception is due to the difficulty in disseminating information about gun control. The NRA and other gun lobbyist groups have put a lot of pressure on congress to restrict the research that the CDC can do promoting gun control. They did this by passing a rider in the CDC’s funding bill that basically says, that they can’t fund or research anything that promotes gun control. Although, researchers from the New England Journal of Medicine found that, living in a household where there are firearms present increases the risk of homicide by 40%-170% and the risk of suicide by 90-400%.

Informing the public of the consequences firearms has on a society would hopefully allow for citizens to understand the risks involved in purchasing a firearm as well as help in persuading the public that gun control in America is a must. I hope that as a country we can come together and control this epidemic.