I like to think that I have experienced the gamut of gun ownership culture firsthand. For much of my childhood I lived in England, a country that is virtually gun free, and I attended college in Philadelphia, a city with one of the highest rates of firearm violence in the United States. Now I live in Utah.
Gun culture here is about as different from England’s as Philadelphia’s was. Utah ranks near the bottom of states in measures of violence, whether gun related or otherwise. The percentage of residents who own guns, however, is in the top third of states. With the possible exception of Texas, I can’t immediately think of any state where the Second Amendment is more revered. Soon after moving here, there was a running joke in my family that all bets should be settled by having the losing party go to the gun section of Cabela’s and shout at the top of their lungs, “I LOVE OBAMA!”. That this was deemed the ultimate punishment describes Utah’s gun culture, among other things, pretty succinctly.
Cultural differences like the ones that exist between London, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City heavily influence people’s opinions on gun ownership and proposed gun reform. They make calm, civilized discourse about gun control across different populations nearly impossible.
As I look back over my life experiences and reflect on the recent tragic events in Orlando, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite founding fathers, John Adams: “Facts are stubborn things.” With that in mind, let’s do our best to check our emotions at the door and review the facts about gun violence in America.
The United States are an outlier among the developed world; a fact rarely disputed. Mind blowing statistics on this topic are thrown around more frequently than Ping-Pong balls at a frat party, but here is something you might not have heard yet: between 1968 and 2011 there were more firearm related deaths in the U.S. than the sum total of American casualties in every war we have ever fought.
Even more shocking, gun violence is 31 times less common in England than it is in the U.S. An Englishman has roughly the same chance of dying of gun violence as an American has of dying of contact with agricultural machinery. Seriously, look it up.
The U.S. has had more mass shootings in the last 50 years than any other country. We have had five times more than the Philippines, who take home the lamentable second place title. An average of more than 30 victims die of gun violence in this country every single day. To quote the man whom Cabela’s patrons (and an overwhelming majority of Utahns) love to hate, Obama, “This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”
Gun reform is possible and effective. England is one example; Australia is another. After a mass shooting in Port Arthur in 1996 in which 35 people were killed and another 23 were wounded, Australia united to pass expansive gun control legislation.
Their National Firearms Agreement banned certain semiautomatic and self-loading rifles and shotguns outright and required all gun license applicants to demonstrate a “genuine reason” for owning a gun, which couldn’t include self-defense. Contrast this with U.S. law, which allowed Omar Mateen — a man previously on the FBI’s terrorist watch list and with a history of domestic violence — to legally purchase an assault rifle.
The Australian government then purchased guns already in circulation. Some gun owners acquired licenses under the new rules, but ultimately 700,000 guns were bought back. This is proportionally the equivalent of about 40 million guns in the U.S. The number of households in Australia in which guns were owned was cut in half.
Over the next 10 years, the firearm homicide rate in Australia fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent without increases in other types of death. In the 20 years before the legislation passed, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia. In the 20 years after the reform, there were zero. Gun related deaths are now 18 times less common in Australia than in the U.S.
The prime minister who led Australia’s gun reform legislation, John Howard, put the transformation in remarkably simple terms: “When Australia had a mass killing… it was just so shocking the entire country said, ‘Well, we’re going to completely change our gun laws,’ and they did. And it hasn’t happened since.”
The U.S. is different in a lot of key ways from Australia. I am sympathetic to the fact that owning guns is a deeply ingrained part of America, especially in places like Utah. I can respect that.
However, mass shootings in churches, schools, and nightclubs have now become an equally significant part of American culture. This demands action, regardless of the U.S.’s unique obstacles and no matter your political persuasion. I only hope that we can come together and follow the example of every other developed country in the world by committing to sacrifice certain aspects of our culture and identity, however cherished they may be, to ensure the safety of our citizens.