United States lags behind other nations
Australia, Canada and the U.K. have responded to mass shootings with federal gun-control legislation that has greatly reduced gun violence in their respective countries, but the U.S. lags behind in passing federal comprehensive gun-control legislation after mass shootings.
The deadliest school shooting in United States history occurred at Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) on April 16, 2007, when 33 people, including the gunman, were killed, reported the New York Times.
According to Popular Science, in Jan. of 2008, President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that improved the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which gun sellers can use to determine whether a prospective buyer is allowed to buy firearms, and gave states funding to improve their firearms reporting systems. As of 2013, only 24 states have added fewer than 100 mental health records to the NICS.
The second-deadliest school shooting occurred on Dec. 14, 2012, when a 20-year-old man shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people, 20 of them children, before killing himself.
The state response was swift: in April of 2013, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a law that includes requiring background checks for all gun purchases, banning high-capacity magazines and over 100 types of assault weapons, and bolstering the state’s mental health services. This law is one of the strictest gun-control laws in the country, reported CNN.
The New York legislature also passed a new gun control law in Jan. 2013 in response to the Sandy Hook shooting. This law, the SAFE Act, regulates the sale of assault weapons and bans large-capacity magazines, wrote USA Today.
President Obama signed 23 executive actions in Jan. 2013 focused on reducing gun violence across the country and asked Congress to pass laws that would require background checks for all gun sales, along with other gun control measures, according to CNN. No federal gun control legislation has been passed since the Sandy Hook shooting.
The U.S. has the highest total firearm death rate of any developed country, with an average 0f 10.8 firearm deaths per 100,000, reported CBS. Finland comes in second place, with 3.6 firearm deaths per 100,000.
There were 372 mass shootings and 64 school shootings in the U.S. in 2015, according to data compiled by the BBC. A total of 13,286 people were killed and 26,819 were wounded by firearms in 2015.
Dr. David Olson, a criminal justice and criminology professor at Loyola University Chicago, said that the reasons behind the high rate of gun violence in the U.S. are complex. There are “a lot of guns” and crime in the country, and the U.S.’s history of racial discrimination as well as the significant gap between the rich and the poor that hinders access to good healthcare and education all contribute to the problem, Olson said.
The legislation following mass shootings has been “fairly minimal, often symbolic, and do not really get at the root of the issues related to gun violence,” Dr. Olson said, citing zero-tolerance policies at schools where students are automatically expelled if they bring a weapon to school. In most school shootings, the shooter intends to commit suicide or have a shootout with police, so “automatic expulsion probably would not have changed the outcome” in these types of situations, Dr. Olson said. He added that banning assault weapons and limiting the size of magazines is generally ineffective because most crimes are not committed with assault weapons and shooters can carry multiple magazines at a time.
Senior Loyola student Micah Saugen questioned the U.S.’s general lack of action following mass shootings.
“Gun violence is a huge problem in this country and if other countries can implement good gun control laws, why can’t America?”
