When will America learn?

 When will America learn?

Gun homicide rates as presented by pbs 

American citizens like to proclaim that their country is the “greatest” in the world. However, how does a great Country not learn from its past mistakes? In the past 10 years, The United States has had a total of 180 school shootings and 356 victims. Unlike other countries, America has refused to take action after each attack on its citizens. So how could we be so great if we do not learn from our mistakes like other countries do?Most countries have had their share of attacks. Each has different approaches with varying results however, the numbers do show a major difference to those of the U.S. Gun homicide rates in the US are constantly increasing compared to other countries. The main factor that causes this difference is the different Gun control laws put into place for each country. 

IN 1989, Canadians in Montreal faced an attack at an engineering school that caused the death of fourteen students and the injury of more than twelve others. Canada learned from this attack unlike its southern neighbor. The country decided to take action and policies were changed. From then on they made their citizens do a twenty-eight day waiting period, mandatory safety training courses and more thorough background checks just to purchase a firearm. They also banned magazines with large amounts of gun content and banned military-like weapons and ammunition. 

    In 1996, Australia faced its worst massacre in the nation’s history in Port Arthur. Thirty-five citizens were killed and over twenty-four were wounded by a semiautomatic weapon. In less than two weeks from that incident Australia made the decision to prohibit automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles,mandate licensing and registration, institute a gun buyback program, make gun market consumers demonstrate a genuine need for a firearm and take a firearm safety course. 

     In 1987, a man killed himself along with almost twenty four others and the United Kingdom decided to ban a long list of weapons. In 1996, sixteen children were killed along with one adult and the shooter themselves and Britain had banned handguns with few exceptions and instituted a buyback program to remove illegal weapons from the streets. 

    In 2011, seventy-seven people were killed in an Oslo summer camp. Some say that Norway and this scenario is the perfect example of why strict gun control does not work. Yet, their gun laws make citizens have to be eighteen years of age, have a valid reason to obtain a firearm, and a government license makes their gun homicide rate forty six times lower than the United States. 

    many wonder why the United States has not done anything about this, one possibility could be the contributors to our political leaders campaigns. Behind every political campaign there is something founding the candidate. With the Republicans we have an office the money they use to keep them in office and keep them running mostly comes from the National Rifle Association. When public officials and those in office are funded by the National Rifle Association, they can not make laws against guns or else they will lose their campaign money. Although they might have the money to stay in office, they could lose the votes and support of the people that keep them in office. The easiest solution would be to find other companies that are neutral on political issues to fund your campaign. For example, in a list of the contributors to the Trump presidential campaign, Walt Disney studios was on the list. This is the perfect example of a neutral company helping a political campaign. It is also a big franchise that could make enormous contributions to the campaign. 

    All of these countries are perfect examples of learning from mistakes. Our country has no excuse to let our people continue to have to be killed. How many more children have to be sacrificed? How many more high schoolers need to not graduate? We are not the greatest country but we could be if we learned from our ignorance and pushed for change. Just like other countries we need to enforce change for the better wellbeing of our citizens and learn from our mistakes.