Gun Violence on the Rise During Pandemic

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Gun violence is on the rise once again throughout cities during the pandemic. In lieu of cases like the NYC Brooklyn Shooting, Florida Teen Dying from Friends Shooting One Another with Firearm, and Puerto Rico’s Olympian Mother Killed by Stray Bullet in Connecticut it is obvious gun violence is a continuous problem we face today. 

 

The 2nd Amendment entails the rights to bear arms to not only protect yourself and your home but to hunt also. Bearing that in mind gun violence is also one of the leading causes of death in America, “ Guns kill more than 38,000 people and cause nearly 85,000 injuries each year,” according to American Public Helath Association. Guns are so engrained into American society that there is a divide on if having stricter gun laws would prevent mass shootings, while others say it would not make a difference or even cause more mass shootings, as stated by Pew Research Center. “According to the same spring 2021 poll. About half of adults (49%) say there would be fewer mass shootings if it was harder for people to obtain guns legally, while about as many either say this would make no difference (42%) or that there would be more mass shootings (9%).”  

 

Even with this divide it does not stop the increasing number of gun violence from going up each year. This year alone there has been 15,594 gun-related deaths in America alone in accordance with the Gun Archive. Causing mayors, police chiefs, and everyone in-between to scramble to put their best foot forward to combat the rising violence but will their efforts help combat the violence in the future? The Biden Administration is crakcing down on ghost guns which are the firearms most found at crime scenes that authorirtes have a difficult time tracing back to the individual purchaser or manufacturer due to the serial number being removed. “ Last year alone, there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported to ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a ten-fold increase from 2016,” as stated in The White House. Requiring that any firearms with a split receiver will be subjected to not only background checks but as well as checking the serial number to ensure it was purchased from the correct licensed parties. In order for this budget to get its’ fett off the ground it needs Congress to pass the bill to ensure gun violence goes down nation wide. 

 

With these efforts there are still many aspects that contribute to gun violence inculding mental health, economic instability, and limited acces to education. New York’s Mayor, Eric Adams, will be focusing on all these from his recent “Blueprint to End Gun Violence in New York City”.  Adams plans to call on both “intervention and prevention to end the gun violence epidemic affecting New York, and calls on the federal government and New York state to partner with his administration and other city entities to take immediate action to reduce gun violence…address the root causes that lead to gun violence by growing economic opportunities, improving the education of city children, providing greater access to mental health support, and more,” in accordance with NYC.gov. Getting to the root causes behind the gun violence can lead America down a path where it won’t be the leading cause of deaths in the United States.