Tamir Kalifa / New York Instances, file
Kimberly Rubio and Kalisa Barboza, her oldest daughter, sit beside Lexi Rubio’s grave on what would have been Lexi’s eleventh birthday, in Uvalde, Texas, on Oct. 20, 2022. Lexi was killed within the taking pictures at Robb Elementary College final Could 24, a tragedy that in some methods modified the dialog but once more on gun violence in the US: 19 fourth-grade college students and two lecturers died in one of many deadliest college shootings in American historical past.
Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Gun violence has change into ubiquitous and might happen with out warning.
America is the worldwide chief relating to gun violence. It has extra weapons than folks. It makes up lower than 5% of the world’s inhabitants however owns roughly 45% of the world’s privately owned firearms. There have been greater than 2,500 mass shootings in our nation for the reason that horrific Sandy Hook Elementary College case in 2012.
Harvard researchers have concluded that there’s a correlation between having extra weapons and better charges of gun deaths — each for homicides and suicides. The empirical proof exhibits that that is true state to state in addition to nation to nation.
Affordable, commonsense rules should be established concerning gun possession if we’re ever going to carry an finish to this every day madness. It’s not a query of discovering the one finest coverage to scale back gun violence, however moderately the most effective mix of evidence-based methods that work most successfully collectively. That ought to embrace:
• bans on assault weapons, bump shares and excessive capability magazines
• common background checks and complete licensing and registration
• elevating the minimal age to buy firearms to at the least 21
• the power to “purple flag” sure people for quite a lot of causes.
Most Individuals assist these measures, based on Pew Analysis Middle. However politicians and extreme-right particular curiosity teams spin them as makes an attempt “to remove our weapons,” so nothing will get achieved. Let’s not proceed enable them do that.
