Dear Editor,

The amount of gun violence in the United States is a problem that other advanced countries do not deal with. In terms of homicides by firearms per 1 million people in advanced countries, the US ranks the highest with 29.7 homicides, almost four times as high as the second-highest country, the American Medical Association said.

What sets our country apart from others is our mass shooting epidemic. Since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, there have been at least 2,273 mass shootings, leaving at least 2,570 dead and 9,472 wounded, according to Vox. A part of our nation’s problem is the ease of access to buy guns.

Our country needs to improve gun control policy to prevent more mass shootings. One way to accomplish this would be by passing a law requiring universal background checks before someone would be able to buy a gun. This is a bipartisan solution with a 2015 survey reporting that 90% of Democratic and 81% of Republican gun owners support background checks. The FBI has said that the Charleston Church shooter would have failed a background check if it had been received before he purchased the weapon.

As a country, we have to address the mass shooting epidemic that we face, and universal background checks would help accomplish this in a matter that people on all sides agree on. We need to be proactive and push our leaders to pass gun control laws, so this will never be an issue that affects the schools and universities in Syracuse and the surrounding areas.

In February, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill for universal background checks. At the time, our Congressman, John Katko, was not in Washington to vote on the bill, but did release a statement saying he would not have voted for it.

We need to call on Congressman Katko to support stricter gun control laws. We cannot afford to have another person die as a result of Congress’s inability to pass stricter gun control measures.

Sincerely,

Evan Greenberg

Freshman

Published on November 18, 2019 at 6:42 pm