Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I consider myself to be moderately liberal. I am going to try and be as unbiased as possible in this essay, but I will frame it from a pro-gun control stance.

As we experience more and more mass shootings in the United States, I see an increase in detached, disappointed social media posts. Yes, most of the people I follow are liberal, like me (probably due to my age bracket and the fact that I grew up and attended university in major urban cities).

But I think we can all agree on the fact that something needs to change – whether it be a change in mental health care, like some Republicans propose, or changes to gun laws, as people on both sides of the aisle might desire.

Let me first address the common Republican stance. Yes, we are experiencing a mental health crisis in America. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that one in four adult Americans have some form of mental illness, yet only a small fraction of those adults receive treatment. Whether this is because of lack of access to treatment, lack of motivation to seek treatment, or a mixture of the two – the fact that so many Americans are going without treatment is an issue.

Kudos to those lawmakers trying to fix this problem, and to those attempting to end the stigma against mental illness. Regardless, it is apparent that a large majority of people with mental illness will still not seek help.

So, let’s now look into gun control.

Many Republicans and strong proponents of the traditional reading of the 2nd Amendment claim that more guns = less crime. This argument was popularized by John R. Lott Jr.’s book of a similar title (More Guns, Less Crime). Lott theorizes that having more armed citizens on the street will lead to their acting in self-defense in the case of an emergency (i.e., they will be heroes and defeat the bad guys). Lott and others also argue that criminals will cower in fear and go into hiding knowing that more armed citizens are out there.

I’m about to make a couple of arguments that may seem fallacious on the surface, but try and hear me out.

Some scientific studies show that arming more citizens leads to an increase in paranoia (rather than an increase in feelings of safety).

One study at Notre Dame (granted, there may be some bias there because I do not know the details of the statistical sample) found that, by giving subjects access to a gun-like object, they were more likely to perceive others as having guns within the scenario, thereby engaging in threat-inducing behavior. I’m going to take this a little too far with my next statement, but couldn’t an implication of this research be that people with guns may be more likely to shoot someone if they perceive them as having a gun, even if they are innocent?

And back to the whole mental health argument. Many pro-gun activists point to mental illness as a cause of mass shootings. However, these activists don’t take into account the fact that arming more citizens makes it more likely that somebody with a mental illness will have easy access to a gun.

Therefore, wouldn’t arming more citizens lead to a greater likelihood of there being more shootings, rather than less (in addition to more people accidentally shooting themselves or other innocent people)?

There’s also the whole psychological concept of the bystander effect – basically, it is rare for somebody to intervene as the hero when something is going wrong, especially if nobody else is helping. I don’t imagine too many scenarios in which somebody would pull out their gun, thinking clearly, and shooting another person terrorizing a crowd of people (especially when there are added threats to the situation). Under our current laws, the instances we do have of this are pretty rare and isolated right now (see a few linked here).

So I have just spent this entire essay basically attempting to disprove the “arming more citizens” idea. How about I look into some sort of solution?

The fact of the matter is, it’s really, really complicated to propose a solution to this nuanced problem. Nobody wants to continue to live in fear of experiencing instances like San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, UCSB, or Columbine. But what can we do to lower the number of guns deaths?

I think we should at least do a better job screening for mental illness in every state in the SHORT term. If there is any way we can reduce people’s access to guns in the long run, maybe we could have a situation like other advanced countries, where those who can access guns are highly trained, responsive members of some form of law enforcement. (Note: I do understand that a liberal critique of this is that our law enforcement has issues elsewhere and may not be able to responsibly carry out this duty…that is for an entirely separate essay).

Source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/22/barack-obama/barack-obama-correct-mass-killings-dont-happen-oth/

I’ll admit that I’m at a complete loss as to a solution for this problem. What I am 100% certain of, however, is that this gun problem is unique to America as an advanced country.

I implore those in positions of power to do SOMETHING about this issue. Or even anyone with a brain and the ability to take a step back and view things more objectively. We need a strong, scientific investigation into this problem. How many more hundreds of people need to die before something changes? I’d say not one more. And we are already at a toll of ~12,217 deaths for 2015 alone….