RUBIN-STANKIEWICZ: To enact change, first address root causes of gun violence
Column: Rutgers Realities
It has been almost unbearable to turn on the news for the past few weeks because every day, there seems to be yet another report of a mass shooting. There have been more mass shootings in 2023 in the U.S. than there have been days.
As difficult as it is to believe in our current climate, gun violence is preventable and by no means inevitable. But to end gun violence, we need to have an understanding of the root causes that provide fuel for this epidemic in our country.
March for Our Lives proposes a framework referred to as the Five Forces to explain the systemic causes that allow gun violence to persist.
The Daily Targum editorial board has previously identified the main culprit of gun violence as the ease of access. This stems in part from gun glorification, rampant in American culture, where uninhibited access to guns is considered a right and is consequently valued more than human safety. Gun glorification also encapsulates how in a world that feels increasingly unsafe, safety is equated to owning and carrying a gun.
Gun glorification builds itself on the myth that gun ownership is an effective means of self-defense when in reality, only 2 percent of victims of nonfatal violent crime and 1 percent of victims of property crime report successfully using a gun in an act of self-defense.
Having a gun in the house is actually associated with a higher risk of violence. A study from the National Library of Medicine found that "for every time a gun in the home was used in self-defense in a legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides and 11 attempted or completed suicides" in the home.
The next force is called armed supremacy, which refers to how guns are used to reinforce systems of power and oppression. There are many instances of shootings in the U.S. that are motivated by white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism and other forces of oppression.
Guns are also used to reinforce power dynamics in perpetuating domestic and familial violence and abuse. Between 2009 and 2020, at least 53 percent of mass shootings, or incidents where four or more people died during a shooting, were related to domestic or familial violence.
Police violence also serves as an example of armed supremacy, as police shootings are the sixth-highest leading cause of death for young men between the ages of 25 and 29. Additionally, Black men are nearly three times more likely than white men to be killed by police. Such violence is especially prevalent among Black, Indigenous and People of Color and disabled Americans, with half of all people killed by police officers being disabled.
Another leading cause of gun violence is the political apathy and corruption present in the U.S. political system, which enables gun lobbies like the National Rifle Association (NRA) to wield so much power, despite not representing the interests of the majority of the American public. More than 80 percent of Americans support universal background checks, which the NRA staunchly opposes.
The NRA’s influence in politics can be summarized by the fact that up until the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year, Congress did not pass any major gun violence prevention legislation for nearly 30 years, which still includes background checks.
Political apathy takes root when the inaction of the federal government is so fundamentally unrepresentative of public opinion on gun violence that Americans feel disconnected from and disempowered by a political system that does not appear to care about serving their interests, which takes away the motivation to become more politically engaged. Voter suppression further feeds into this sense of disempowerment.
Poverty also plays a critical role in gun violence. Young people who live in counties where at least 20 percent of the population earn below the federal poverty line are more than four times more likely to die by gun violence than youth living in counties where less than 5 percent of the population earns under the federal poverty level. Communities with high concentrations of poverty have less resources and are often overpoliced, subjecting community members to higher risks of police violence.
The final force is the national mental health crisis. People with mental illnesses are more likely to be victimized by gun violence, whether focusing on the disproportionate police violence that people with mental illnesses face or the fact that more than half of all gun-related deaths in America are gun suicides. Meanwhile, survivors of gun violence are re-traumatized by countless acts of gun violence every day.
The eradication of gun violence requires policy efforts to address all Five Forces simultaneously. Gun violence prevention should be led by efforts to restrict gun access in situations where violence is likely and to educate about gun safety, but our work cannot stop there.
Gun violence policy is often handled in a reactive way because the policy window for passing gun safety legislation opens temporarily after horrific tragedies and closes quickly thereafter. The Five Forces offer a framework to address gun violence preventatively and continuously in all its facets because there is no time to wait.
Raisa Rubin-Stankiewicz is a junior in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in political science and minoring in psychology. Her column, "Rutgers Realities," runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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