On Jan. 5, President Obama unveiled his new strategy to curb gun violence in America. However, his actions may not even help prevent gun violence, may infringe on the Constitutional power given to the president…and are very sad. Even Obama cries about the fact that his plan will not help the gun violence issue in America.
Obama’s new policy aims at increasing the reach of federal background checks for gun purchases and improving enforcement of existing laws. Additionally, Obama’s action on gun control is an executive order, which means that it bypasses Congress.
However, in a CNN poll, a little less than 60 percent of pollers say that these new changes will be effective at reducing gun-related deaths, and over 50 percent of pollers say they oppose the way the president has used his executive powers to change gun laws. Obama’s plan will unnecessarily waste money because we already have most of Obama’s plan in the law books.
In 1998, the FBI launched a program called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms. According to the FBI’s website, more than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.
During the last 20 years, the crime rate has also dropped. According to the Disaster Center, the number of crimes committed in 1990 was over 14 million. In 2014, the number dropped to 9 million. Obama does not need to waste American tax dollars to try and help an already improving crime rate in our country.
Additionally, more restrictions on guns does not mean less crime. According to the Small Arms Survey, nearly 90 out of 100 people own a gun in the United States. America actually ranks 103rd on the highest international homicide rate list. Though some media sources may over exaggerate our position in the international crime list, the U.S. is actually very low on the list.
A recent study published in the “Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy” concluded that there is a negative correlation between gun ownership and violent crime in countries internationally, meaning that higher rates of gun ownership leads to lower violent crime. In fact, the nine European nations with the lowest gun ownership rate have a combined murder rate three times that of the nine European nations with the highest gun ownership rate.
Increased gun regulation by the federal government will not lower gun violence in America. Obama’s plan to help lower the gun violence in America will not work how it is intended to.
-Ryan Lin
