By: Hayat Osman
Warning: this topic may be sensitive to some readers.
Although there was a pandemic in 2020, according to the ‘Gun Violence Archive’ data, the rate of gun violence didn’t decrease. Instead, gun violence killed nearly 20,000 Americans; more than any other year in at least two decades.
Considering only high-profile mass shootings get media coverage, they overshadow the instances of everyday gun violence. This may be one of the reasons why the need for gun control is swept under the rug by the government.
One example of an everyday instance caused by gun violence in 2020, that is overshadowed by mass shooting reports, is the additional 24,000 people who died by suicide with a gun.
Because the media doesn’t often report the role of gun violence in homicides, domestic abuse, suicide, and unintentional deaths as much as mass shootings, “It doesn’t get the support, the spotlight, the national attention. People don’t understand that it’s continuous and it’s on the rise,” said Mark Barden, co-founder of the gun violence prevention group Sandy Hook Promise.
A study in 2016, published by the academic journal ‘Epidemiologic Reviews’, wanted to find ways to resolve the problem. They reviewed evidence from 10 different countries, around the world, on gun laws and gun violence from 130 different studies, to see if they could find a similar conclusion. One compelling trend they found was that gun restrictions on purchasing and owning a gun was followed by a decline in gun deaths.
So, the results of this study show that if we want to lower the death rates that are caused by gun violence, we must push for the government to make gun restrictions.
For more information, please visit:
Plaid Line 