It’s nearly noon, well 11:43 AM EST to be exact. President Obama is delivering a press conference, WhiteHouse.gov reports he opened his speech with this, “Five years ago this week, a sitting member of Congress and 18 others were shot at, at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. It wasn’t the first time I had to talk to the nation in response to a mass shooting, nor would it be the last. Fort Hood. Binghamton. Aurora. Oak Creek. Newtown. The Navy Yard. Santa Barbara. Charleston. San Bernardino. Too many.”
He continues to speak giving an anecdote about the supermarket shooting with a loose joke, attempting to ease tensions of this serious topic. He continues with the following statement, “And then I think of all the Americans who aren’t as fortunate. Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns — 30,000. Suicides. Domestic violence. Gang shootouts. Accidents.” He continues to -+deliver a heartfelt speech. Calling for reformment of current gun laws. Calling for Republican and Democrats to come together for the safety of the American people. As expected, his words sound smooth and moving. One can assume truth behind his words. Spend some time researching the following: most death by guns in the United States, amount of mass shooting, the weapons used by such mass shooters, and a few others. Combining the information found together, one will discover that President Obama among everyone calling for strict gun laws are wrong. Harry L. Wilson wrote in his book Guns, Gun Control, and Elections: The Politics and Policy of Firearms that “Gun control is both an emotional and factious issue . . . Those who favor look at injuries and deaths related to firearm use, and they feel that many of those lives can be saved and injuries prevented.” President Obama as well as his fellow politicians are manipulating numerical statistics as a means of appealing a scared American populace. This research paper will prove why strict gun control laws with ultimately fail to prevent deaths. The reasons are as follows; the most deaths by firearms in the United States are self-inflicted suicides, that this is an over-reaction to the small amount of mass shootings, ultimately proposed laws will fail to solve the issue of suicides by firearms.
As shocking as this may sound, the truth is the highest number of gun fatalities comes not from gun violence. Instead statistically it comes from suicides. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) reported that the number of annual firearm fatalities that are considered assault/homicide is 11,208(CDC Factstats Homepage). The CDC additionally reported that the number of annual firearm suicides is 21,175 out of the 41,149 total report suicides(CDC Factstats Homepage). To put those numbers into context, out of all annual reported suicides roughly 51.5% are the results of a firearm. When President Obama and especially his peers make calls for stricter gun laws in hopes of bring down gun-related deaths they fail to solve the real problem. Stricter gun laws might decrease homicide, and yes stricter gun laws are not an infringement upon our rights under the Second Amendment. Making firearms more difficult to obtain will still ultimately fail to decrease the amount of firearm suicides. On the same day of January 5th he proposed certain firearm laws. The National Conference of State Legislation provide that President Obama’s proposed plan includes the following:
“Will encourages greater communications between federal and state authorities on criminal history information. Requires the ATF Bureau to issue a rule requiring background checks for purchasers of certain dangerous firearms and other items who purchase them through a trust, corporation or other legal entity. Instructs the FBI to overhaul the background check system to make it more efficient and accurate. Proposes a $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care by increasing service capacity and the behavioral health workforce. Directs the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to require any business that engages in the sale of guns to obtain a federal license to do so and conduct background checks. This requirement applies to gun stores, sellers of guns at gun shows, and sellers of guns over the Internet. Calls for increased funding to ATF for the hiring of 200 new ATF agents and investigators to help enforce existing gun laws. ATF is also directed to establish an Internet Investigation Center with dedicated personnel to track illegal online firearms trafficking.”
Of all the proposed firearm laws stated by President Obama each and every single one will fail to solve the number of suicides by firearm. The only proposed laws that will is “Proposes a $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care by increasing service capacity and the behavioral health workforce. The Department of Health and Human Services will finalize a rule removing legal barriers preventing states from reporting relevant information about people prohibited from possessing a gun for specific mental health reasons.” Along with a law that “Requires inclusion of mental health information from the Social Security Administration (SSA) in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm.” Essentially the laws will finally seek to solve the issues of individuals with a mental health concern legally gaining access to firearms. Which in theory is good idea a good plan. The only problem is there are still American citizens who have not seeked treatment for psychiatric disorders namely depression, American teenagers who gain access to their parents legal-aquired firearm, and ultimately “Some people have only one episode in a lifetime, but for most people depression recurs. Without treatment, episodes may last a few months to several years. People with severe depression can feel so hopeless that they become a risk for suicide” (National Alliance on Mental Health).
As President Obama mentioned in his speech incidents of mass shooting. Those incidents in fact for the majority of them, were carried out by an individual considered by the some to have some form of a mental illness. Interestingly, The New York Times reported that, “According to one, epidemiological estimate [National Alliance on Mental Health], entirely eliminating the effects of mental illness would reduce all violence by only 4 percent. Over all, less than 5 percent of gun homicides between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people with diagnoses of mental illness . . .” and that “that in about 11 percent of shootings between January 2009 and July 2015 in which four or more people were killed.” These statistics disprove the notion that the a majority of the mass shootings that occur was committed by someone suffering a psychiatric disorders. Which begs the question: Why do politicians and media reporters tell such a convincing tale? A tale that statistically is disproven. Quite simply, it is easier for the general populace to accept the reasoning. There would be a public outcry if everyone stated, “We do not know why the shooter shot so many people. At this moment, we have no inclination why the shooter commit such an atrocity.”
The American Journal of Public Health published a report that, “psychiatric disorders are present in at least 90% of suicide victims, but untreated in more than 80% of these at the time of death.” Both current laws and proposed laws fail at the one true problem. The means of proper treatment and diagnosis of mental illness. To solve this we would have to implement not only President Obama’s proposed plan to have $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care, but also a shift toward the societal acceptance toward seeking mental treatment for psychiatric disorders. Alongside an increase in suicide helplines, and methods of preventing suicide. If psychiatric disorders can be better treated, both suicides and mass shooting can be stopped before they happen. This plan is not one hundred percent guaranteed to stop firearm suicides. Along with the fact that increased firearm purchase requires will possibly decrease homicide deaths by firearms. The United States is faced with a problem. A problem that can be stopped at the source. A solution that both Republican and Democrats can support.
Works Cited Page
“Assault or Homicide.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 06 Feb. 2015. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
“Depression.” NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
“Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Gun Violence.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2015. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
Lewiecki, E. Michael, and Sara A. Miller. “Suicide, Guns, and Public Policy.” American Journal of Public Health. American Public Health Association. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
“President Obama’s 2015 Executive Actions on Gun Control.” President Obama’s 2015 Executive Actions on Gun Control. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
“Remarks by the President on Common-Sense Gun Safety Reform.” The White House. The White House, 05 Jan. 2016. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
“Suicide and Self-Inflicted Injury.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 03 Feb. 2016. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
Wilson, Harry L. Guns, Gun Control, and Elections: The Politics and Policy of Firearms. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print.
Seeking Into The Void 