The mentality of a safer gun community

By: Hailie Melton

Gun control. It’s a topic almost all Americans have an opinion on, whether it be that we should get rid of guns in general or that we shouldn’t have as many gun control laws. I believe that we should have more laws mentioning mental health and/or disturbances that gun buyers should have to abide by before even being able to touch or see a gun. Studies show that the highest rate of gun-related murders (per 100k inhabitants for all rates) is in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C., which has a rate of 16.5, compared to the average rate, which is 2.7 and the lowest rate being 0.3 in Vermont (all per year), according to a study done by Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Statistics show, via Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, that domestic violence and mental health issues have a positive relationship with criminal history. People with mental health issues or rougher backgrounds/criminal history are more likely to commit a crime. There are many people with mental illnesses who own a firearm. Now, not every mental illness is a danger when it comes to guns; the most likely mental illnesses, via NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), would be PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and other types of mental illnesses that include heavy hallucinations or alterations in perception of reality, such as schizophrenia, BPD (borderline personality disorder), bipolar disorder and MPD (multiple personality disorder).

Eighteen of our 50 states don’t have laws regarding whether a mentally-ill person can own a gun, 35 out of 50 states don’t have laws regarding whether a drug/alcohol offender can own a gun and 33 out of 50 states don’t have laws regarding whether someone with a criminal history, history of violence or a juvenile offense can own a gun, says Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. That needs to change.

Stronger gun control laws contribute to less gun-related deaths. Studies show that states with looser and weaker gun laws have more gun-related deaths than those with stronger and stricter gun laws. The top 10 states with the weakest gun control laws (AK, AL, AR, LA, MS, MO, NV, NM, WV and WY) average at 20.46 gun-related deaths per year. The top states with the strictest/strongest gun laws (CA, CT, HI, IL, MD, MA, NJ and NY) average at only 6.37 gun-related deaths per year, says Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. This alone should clearly open up some eyes to show that we need to up our gun control laws in order to up our safety for future generations.