The Reason Why I'm Unsatisfied With The Government
The federal government is not doing a good job with gun control. The reason is that America is having a more frequent mass shooting. This is a bad thing because it puts millions of lives in danger. Despite having many Americans for gun control (between 50-60%) the US somehow still has weak gun laws. This is a bad thing because the American peoples’ voice is not being heard. To get a gun the only thing that could potentially prevent an unfit person to get a gun is if they were charged a felony. Most people who harm themselves with guns got them legally. These are the people who are likely to have mental health issues. Even though the federal law states no one who was involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric hospital can own a gun, there are ways to hide or avoid it. This results in loopholes that can be exploited. For example, someone can be diagnosed with a serious mental illness but not take any steps to get better. When they are at their lowest point, they can hide it, buy a gun and seriously hurt or kill themselves. Another thing is that the seller of the gun will not know whether the person buying the gun got committed or not due to Federal HIPPA Laws. Overall, the US government is doing a poor job with basic gun control and it is a bad thing because it can endanger people. A possible solution that the federal government could implement for the issues with mental health is that they set up a national system that lets the gun sellers access a thorough medical history of a customer. This would include what mental health condition they are diagnosed with, the number of hospitalizations and the symptoms they presented, this information would not violate HIPPA. Another thing that can happen is that the potential owner goes through a screening process mandated by federal law to identify if they are fit to own a gun. With regards to mass shootings, it would not be wise for the federal government solution to ban all guns and take away firearms from sane law-abiding citizens. Instead. The federal government should focus on targeted actions such as addressing firearm access to the mentally ill. As of now, the federal government is doing a poor job with gun control, particularly with regards to firearms access for the mentally ill.
After reading my colleague Sareh Siddiqi's opinion on the current standing of U.S. gun control, especially regarding the extremely poor job the government is doing keeping guns out of mentally ill citizens, many agreeing and controverting thoughts come to mind. In her Blog titled, "Reason Why I'm Unsatisfied With The Government", Sareh goes on to show a great understanding of how difficult keeping guns out of peoples hands can really be but never really shows a realistic solution to how we can stop this. She mentions how there should be tougher pre-screenings for buying a gun and how medical history should be accessible by the seller before agreeing to sell a person a gun, but according to NBC News, 80% of the guns used in mass shootings in the past ten 10 years have all been legally acquired. On top of that, 61% of all gun-related suicides in the last 10 years have also been with legally obtained guns. NBC News also goes on to mention how almost all of these gunmen/suicide victims would have still been able to legally acquire these guns after medical and background screenings. Having this being said, I completely agree with Sareh in the fact that the U.S. government is doing a poor job with the current state of gun control however I do not agree with the fact that she states putting all of the blame on the government when there is only so much the government can do. I say this meaning that at the end of the day if a human really wanted to acquire a gun for whatever reason, there are plentiful ways for one to be acquired illegally in the matter of just a day whether it be on everyday sites like craigslist, or through the many gun trading websites that currently exist.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I disagree with Sareh on what she thinks needs to be done to make accessing a gun more difficult, I understand this is going to be extremely challenging for the government and I don't necessarily know what could be the best solution. Yet I truly think taking more affirmative action, for example, taking down the many gun exchange and related websites entirely from the internet will be more effective than requiring screenings that are often easily avoidable and sometimes not even mentioned. Like mentioned before, the government only has so many "eyes" on its citizens so the complete vanish of illegally purchased guns is nearly impossible in current society.