By Dorany Pineda
Voting in support of stricter gun control policies could effectively decrease the number of firearm homicides and aggravated assaults with a firearm in the state of California.
California’s Proposition 63, which will appear in the November ballots, proposes stricter gun control measures, including background checks for ammunition purchases and a large capacity ammunition magazine ban initiative.
Many sources, including a 2015 report by USA Today, have found a link between feeble gun laws in states and high gun-related deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors the number of gun-related deaths in each state. This includes victims of homicides, suicides and accidents.
The figures, which were analyzed by John Roman from the Urban Institute, found that states with the highest gun-related deaths required no permits to purchase guns, including rifles, handguns or shotguns.
These states include Alaska, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Gun owners from these states do not need to register their weapons.
Permits and other forms of identification were required to buy guns in states with the least gun violence, such as California.
In states where gun ownership is low, due particularly to more stringent laws on gun purchases, firearm violence was lower than states with higher gun ownership.
The data suggests that when people have easier access to firearms, there tends to be increased gun-related deaths.
The growing trend of shootings on U.S. soil has sparked a national debate on gun policies between left and right wing political parties.
On the left there is strong support for stricter gun regulations, whereas the right believes that tougher laws violate people’s right to keep and bear arms as stated by the Second Amendment.
But with gun-violence drastically increasing throughout the country and becoming nearly routine, the implementation of common sense gun laws such as Proposition 63 is one step in the long process of making the United States a safer place.
So what is it going to take for us to see any legislative action from government officials?
With gun-obsessed Republicans currently in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the situation is tricky.
The National Rifle Association is bound to and supported by the Republican party.
The NRA is such a powerful influence on the GOP that the latter has decided that the $35 million in donations they’ve received by the former is more important than civilian lives.
In the eyes of the right, monetary gain takes precedence over American lives.
In the minds of the right, tougher gun laws don’t matter, nor do the tragedies in Orlando, Sandy Hook Elementary and all the other victims of gun violence. Their continual response has been one giant, collective, pea-brained: “What of it?”
The rampant, growing and senseless killings of people in the United States are a result of inept politicians and their passive reactions to the rising pool of blood on our streets, in our homes, our schools, our clubs.
If stricter gun-control legislations will not be enacted across the entire United States, then we can at least do so at home, here in California, and hope that it triggers a domino effect throughout the nation.
I’m in the middle of responding to this opinion piece and was searching for the “report by USA Today,” and have had no luck. Please direct me to where I can read said report. Thanks!