The United States is at a crossroads when it comes to gun control, and BYU-Hawaii students shared their insights about the recurrent episodes of gun violence plaguing the nation. The frequency of attacks have been termed “the gun epidemic” by mainstream media.
“I can see that there are still attacks daily, and I think I saw statistics recently that people die [by violence] on a daily basis in the United States, which, to me, is absolutely insane,” said Ben Papeo, a senior majoring in psychology from Italy. “I’m not pro guns, but at the same time I understand that here in the States it’s a right. It’s not easy to say, ‘Let’s get rid of [them].”
At present, the U.S. Second Amendment is the focal point of both public and political debate. President Barack Obama recently admonished, “Gun violence in our country is a crisis. Gun deaths and injuries constitute one of the greatest threats to public health and to the safety of the American people. Every year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns.”
The fatalities to which President Obama alluded to include deaths by gang violence, suicide, domestic brutality, and school shootings. “A national crisis like this demands a national response,” he concluded. President Obama is considering the implementation of several executive actions in order to prevent future gun-related deaths.
According to www.whitehouse.gov, these measures include the application of more legal “red tape” to make it more difficult for firearms to end up in the hands of dangerous people. For citizens attempting to buy more powerful weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is “finalizing a rule to require background checks.”
Furthermore, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be “overhauling the background check system to make it more effective and efficient.”
The White House website also lists the treatment of mental instability as one of its priorities to prevent potential gun-related tragedies from occurring. From an official statement: “The Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.”
The Department of Health and Human Services will also get involved by “finalizing a rule to remove unnecessary legal barriers preventing states from reporting relevant information about people prohibited from possessing a gun for specific mental health reasons.”
The government hopes these new measures will help prevent gruesome tragedies such as the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, or the 2012 slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. According to the National Public Radio, the mental instability of the shooters at Newtown and Aurora was severe.
Princess Donato, a sophomore majoring in exercise sports science from Doha, Qatar, said, “I think only the people with legal licensing should handle [guns].”
Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said recently, “We need to be having a conversation about guns like we have a conversation about everything else in society that presents risks and rewards – automobiles, swimming pools.” According to Gross, a more comprehensive debate about firearms can help secure “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
Hawaii is an exception when it comes to gun violence. According to the Honolulu Civil Beat and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Hawaii has the lowest gun related deaths in the nation.