We are all sympathetic to the victims of gun violence, but it doesn’t really seem to impact us until it happens somewhere close to home. On Oct. 29, 2018, a student was shot at Butler High School in Matthews, North Carolina. Although I did not go to Butler High School, there are likely students at NC State that have graduated from Butler High. This got me thinking that school shootings can happen anywhere, even at NC State.
The incident at Butler High School taught me something though, that as a society we’ve grown accustomed to school shootings. In fact, the incident didn’t receive a lot of national attention. It seems that gun violence is just something that naturally happens in our society.
Well, I am tired of feeling this way. I am tired of hearing that someone died from gun violence at school, at a place of worship or in a theater. I am tired of worrying that a student at NC State may become a victim of gun violence. It is time that we come together as a society and admit that North Carolina — and the United States in general — has a gun problem, and we need to do something.
As NC State students, we should be pushing for more gun reform. Although the elections have passed, students can protest for common-sense gun reform at the local legislature to ensure safety amongst North Carolina residents and contact their representative in the General Assembly to encourage them to design and pass such policies.
To give an idea of how bad gun violence is in the United States, there were 49,347 incidents of gun violence in 2018 alone: 24,425 people injured, 12,588 people killed, 2,449 teenagers dead and 576 children robbed of their lives.
In the United States, around 4.43 out of 100,000 people will be victims of gun violence. For comparison, only 0.06 out of 100,000 people in the United Kingdom die from gun violence. We have a high mortality rate from gun violence compared to the rest of the industrialized world.
The only way we can solve gun violence is by implementing gun control. I am not advocating for guns to be banned. I believe in the 2nd amendment and that people have the right to own a firearm. However, those who have exhibited violent behavior in the past, are on the no-fly list or have severe mental health issues should not be able to purchase a gun. This restriction will prevent dangerous people from obtaining guns, saving lives in the process.
While opponents of gun control would argue that criminals won’t abide by these laws, according to NBC, 80 percent of mass shooters obtained their guns legally. By implementing common sense gun reform, we can prevent certain people from harming others while allowing law-abiding citizens to maintain their weapons.
One law that the government needs to fix is the “gun-show loophole.” This loophole means private sellers of firearms are not required to perform any background checks on people who purchase a gun. This loophole allows dangerous people to acquire weapons.
While some states have required licensed and private sellers to perform background checks, North Carolina is not one of them. Congress and the General Assembly should pass laws that ensures that both private and licensed firearm sellers provide a universal background check to ensure that guns won’t fall in the wrong hands.
As a society, we need to ask ourselves about how many guns we own. America has a lot of guns; in fact, there are more guns than people in the United States. There are 113 guns for every 100 Americans. However, only 30 percent of Americans own guns. Even more striking, around 3 percent of the population owns half of the guns in America.
While some would argue that everyone should own more guns to ensure a safer area, only the opposite occurs. There have been multiple studies that have shown that states with the most guns have more homicides. More guns does not mean more safety.
Overall, North Carolina needs some form of gun control. There need to be laws that keep weapons away from potentially dangerous people while allowing law-abiding citizens to keep their guns. And if Congress won’t act, we must push our state legislature to defend our right to safety from gun violence. By doing so, hopefully we can prevent another tragedy from happening on our soil.
