Americans are no strangers to discussions about the exceptionalism of their gun ownership. Pride and love for guns and a deep determination to protect gun rights are some of the most deep seeded values among Americans today, as firearms have for decades been inextricably linked with understandings of freedom, liberty, and sometimes even democracy.

There are a couple of statistics that really put the American passion for guns into perspective: The United States has the highest rate of civilian gun ownership per capita, at 120 guns for every 100 people. This rate is double the next highest country’s rate of 62 guns per 100 people in the Falkland Islands, and 2.3 times the third highest rate of 52 guns per 100 people in war torn Yemen.

Civilians own an estimated 393 million guns in the United States. The country contains 5% of the world’s population, and 40% of the world’s civilian gun stock. Perhaps even more shockingly, polling indicates that only 30% of Americans personally own guns, meaning that the distribution of guns is not even among the population, but is rather concentrated in private gun collections owned by a relatively small portion of the population.

There are two primary reasons why guns are so commonly owned in the United States: culture, and ease of access. The United States is one of only three countries in the world that guarantees the right to bear arms as part of its constitution (although the interpretation of the second amendment as protecting individual rather than militia rights  has been debated for years), and there has been a strong gun owning culture since the country’s founding. In many parts of the country, a citizen who has not been convicted of a felony and does not have a history of mental illness can obtain a semi automatic assault rifle in as little as 7 minutes.

What has the ubiquity yielded? When mixed with a mental health crisis and paltry social safety net, shocking quantities of death. The United States has a firearm homicide rate eighteen times higher than the average in other developed countries. In 2019, U.S.A counted 23,000 suicides by gun, which accounted for 44% of the world total. Guns are the leading cause of death for persons aged 1-19 in America, and an average of 2 million guns were sold every month of 2020.

Most have heard by now about how violent the United States is compared to the rest of the developed world, but a lot of the other impacts of this violence frequently go undiscussed. Perhaps the most striking example of these consequences is the amount of witnesses and survivors of gun violence we have in the United States. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that:

21% of Americans have been personally threatened by a gun.

19% have a family member who has been killed by a gun.

17% have personally witnessed someone being shot.

The United States has become a society where it is commonplace to witness and experience violence that is only normal in nations with governments torn apart by war, gangs, and corruption. Citizens are forced to live with these traumatic events on a daily basis and as a fact of life, doubtless with immense psychological effects. For many, one of these events is fundamentally life altering, but to experience such trauma and then contend with the overwhelming apathy of our society on this issue is significantly more damaging. 

Gun safety activists have said for years that we are losing a generation of young people to guns. They are right in more ways than one: not only are we losing thousands of our youth every year to deaths in streets, schools, and communities, but we are losing an even bigger chunk who are alienated every day from their communities and government by a sense that no one cares about violence they have faced. The apathy of our lawmakers has created a new silent and traumatized generation; millions of Americans (and especially young people) who have had their traumatic experiences ignored and dismissed in favor of more guns.

The incongruity of these individual’s experiences and governmental response has become dystopian in breadth: the barbarity and utter shock associated with any act of gun violence demands response from any reasonable, caring human being. To be so callous in the face of such naked brutality seems impossible for any person that has the ability to feel emotion, and yet this inaction has become the status quo for nearly half of our elected officials, and our federal government.

To discuss the crisis of gun violence in the United States by citing death tolls and condemning weak gun laws is no longer enough. America has become one nation, under gun: every other aspect of domestic and foreign policy is touched by an inability to deal with the gun problem. Below are some examples:

On foreign policy: Not only is this universality of violence so viscerally out of place and destructive in the highly developed United States, but it is a national embarrassment. The inability for our government to take action to protect its own citizens against gun violence is no longer only a domestic liability: countries across the world have taken notice of this violence, and adversaries like Russia have taken to pointing to American gun crime rates as evidence of the violent culture, lack of civility, and weakness of the American Government.

On mental health: For the past few years, there has been an explosion of concern about the youth mental health crises and an overwhelming sense of nihilism among young people. Experts have hypothesized that this wave of depression and hopelessness is prompted by a confluence of factors: the COVID Pandemic, excessive use of technology, and increased isolation are some of the most commonly named culprits. 

Although these factors might play a role in creating this crisis, our government might benefit from showing even a cursory interest in the very survival of young people before suggesting that their phones are the problem.

On poverty: In many impoverished communities, policy or lack thereof have made it easier to buy a pistol than find a job or any meaningful opportunities. This fact creates a trap for many desperate individuals, some who find a life of violence as the only opportunity to meet the basic necessities of themselves and family members. This cycle of poverty leading to violence cannot be disrupted without more strict gun laws. As long as opportunities consistently lack and guns are consistently available, crime and recidivism will persist.

These problems are large, but not insurmountable. Addressing the gun problem that contributes to many of them is simple, quick, and effective. The blood of our youth will continue to stain the hands of those lawmakers who refuse to pick the lives of our nation’s children over their personal financial and political interests.