Guns in America - We Don't Have to Live Like This

Of all the things that make the United States stand out on the global stage, our relationship with guns is often perceived as one of the most bewildering by people from other nations.  

A mounting epidemic of gun violence 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, over the past decade, about 23,000 people in the US have died and another almost 20,000 have been injured by gun violence (these figures include gun-involved deaths by suicide).  

In 2014, there were 272 mass shootings—defined as four or more people killed or injured by gunfire—in the country. In 2020, that number topped 600. In 2022, it reached 646.  

The view from abroad 

But we don’t have to live this way.  

Europeans, who live in a region with some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, are perpetually stunned and bewildered by the number and lethality of mass shootings in the US.  

According to a 2013 European Commission study, 90 percent of European Union citizens were listed as never having owned a gun in their lives. Most European gun owners reported having their weapons for hunting, target shooting, or military or law enforcement service. Only 14 percent reported keeping a firearm for personal protection, and only about 5 percent said they were gun collectors.  

In 2022, Italian journalist Marzio G. Mian, who has covered socio-political events around the world, talked to Governing magazine to share what he’s learned about broad perspectives on the issue in Europe.  

In Italy, there are about 12 guns for every 100 civilians, versus more than 120 per 100 civilians in the US.  

We can also note that the second-most gun-owning country, Yemen, is the location of some of the fiercest armed conflicts in the world. Yet Yemen’s rate of gun ownership is less than half that of the US. 

In Italy, Mian said, it takes about 18 months just for an application to own a hunting rifle to make its way through the regulatory process. This includes proof of adequate training and skill, an interview with police, and a psychological evaluation. The process is similar in other European countries.  

While guns legally owned by police and military service members tragically play a big role in domestic violence killings in Italy, Mian noted, the country has never experienced a mass shooting of the type so prevalent in the US. 

A poisonous myth 

Asked to explain the difference in attitudes between Italy and the US, Mian noted the American “myth of the frontier” that established in people a sense of being under perpetual threat. This, along with the image of heroically participating in militia defense, is a “romantic” but unrealistic idea, he noted. For Europeans, their sense of living as free individuals doesn’t have anything to do with standing ruggedly against whatever sort of government oppression. It’s centered on the notion that “freedom is in the community,” in which citizens maintain their freedom through the rule of law, not the chaos of violence.  

The journalist added that, once you also consider that the US is home to so many marginalized people abandoned to their own resources and without social or mental health support, it’s easy to see why mass gun violence can become a common response for the most isolated and disturbed.  

Serbia’s example 

The way Americans and Europeans respond to incidents of gun violence is very different, too. After two mass shootings in May 2023 in Serbia—including the country’s first mass shooting in a school—officials immediately acted.  

After a month-long amnesty period, Serbs turned in more than 6,000 unregistered firearms and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. Other newly enacted measures include tighter regulation of shooting ranges and private gun owners, stricter sentences for unlawful possession, and a moratorium on new gun licenses.  

The school shooting was an especially traumatic incident for the entire country. A 13-year-old gunman killed a security guard and eight of his fellow students with two pistols licensed to his father.  

Progress 30 years in the making 

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has achieved some success in tightening our gun regulations.  

In June 2022, the president signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major gun control bill to pass Congress in three decades. His signing of this legislation came only about a month after the horrific shootings in a Uvalde, Texas elementary school and a Buffalo, New York grocery store.  

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act provides added incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws allowing the removal of guns from people with proven patterns of dangerous behavior. It also increases the scope of background checks and expands coverage of existing laws that keep firearms out of the hands of people convicted of domestic abuse.  

Through an executive order in March 2023, President Biden increased the number of required background checks, directed government agencies to reduce the number of guns “lost” during shipping, and promoted increased awareness among the public about how to access red flag laws to protect themselves. Further, the executive order enhances firearms buy-back programs and tasks federal agencies with publishing lists of weapons dealers in violation of federal law.  

But as numerous experts and activists—and President Biden himself—point out, all this still doesn’t bring us into parity with our peer nations. There, we only have to look to see how successful gun control measures can exist within robust democracies.