Gun Violence In Chi-Raq By Spike Lee

Every day 297 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings, and police intervention. Everyday 89 people die from gun violence, 31 of those people are murdered. Today I'm going to be talking about the social justice issue of gun violence. Gun violence, death and injury from firearms is a major issue in all parts of our world. Gun violence continues to affect young people, lower-income people, and communities of color. This social justice and public health issue occurs in places all over the world, however it has become such an epidemic in the United States that it will result in gun violence being one of the main topics in the 2016 presidential election. There are many causes for gun violence, for example, in this day and age pop culture influence is the greatest cause of gun violence. Guns have also became more accessible and easy to obtain. Poor identification and treatment of mentally ill people is another significant cause for gun violence.

With the popular culture providing positive images of guns, the United States has a gun prevalence that is very rare in the modern world. While many people appreciate the “gun culture”, guns are heavily involved in violence in the United States. According to U.S. Department of Justice, since 1960, more than 750,000 Americans have died under firearms, including homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries. The figure 1 provides a comprehensive survey of U.S. violent crimes for the period from 1993 to 2011.This figure illustrates that from 1993 to 2011, about 60% to 70% of homicides were associated with a firearm. Over the same period, between 6% and 9% of all nonfatal violence, with about 20% to 30% of robberies and 22% to 32% of aggravated assaults involving a firearm.

Looking at the nightly news, many would believe violent crimes are at an all-time high. There is no longer just one on one violent crimes or gang violent crimes. There are court shootings, school shootings, church shootings, theater shootings, mall shootings, workplace shootings, and others. Most one on one crime is committed with an illegal gun; whereas most mass shootings are done with handguns that are purchased legally. Although, violent crimes reported on the nightly news is hard to hear or see. It has become very common to encounter this information on a daily basis. The numbers seem to be overwhelming; statistics share violent crimes are at an all-time low. While the numbers of crimes are decreasing, gun ownership

There are roughly 32,000 gun deaths per year in the United States. Around 60% of these crimes are gang related. In discussion of gun violence, a controversial issue is whether gun related crimes are blamed on the person who owned the gun or by the illegal gun purchase. While some people believe gun violence should be blamed on the people that cause the violence, others contend that gun violence should be blamed on the way people receive their gun. When I was younger and uninformed, I thought gun purchases are effective and legal. I failed to notice that guns the purchase of the gun itself is being conducted informally, which leads to people also trading their guns illegally. Between informal gun purchases and illegal gun trading, this also leads to gang related gun violence.

Gun violence is the sign of a far greater universal problem in America today. Violence and gun violence specifically, is surrounded within, and spread all through every part of our society. All the reasons remain intimately related to the actual solution, which can only be a general solution one by treating it as one issue. The region that I live in is considered a peaceful part of Harvest, which I am particularly grateful about. I do not have to worry about gunfights in the roads of my community, nor maybe being helpless confronted by students with a gun at school. That, nevertheless, does not mean that my community is impermeable to gun violence. Huntsville has seen its share of gun violence from the incident at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), where three people were murdered and three others injured on February 12, 2010. Throughout the course of a routine gathering of the biology department attended by about 12 people, professor Amy Bishop stood up and began shooting those next to her with a 9-millimeter handgun (Hall 2010)

Before I get into the strategies put in place to reduce gun violence, I want to touch on the things that contribute to gun violence in New Haven. According to the “Selected Strategies for Community Gun Violence Prevention” report, violent crimes contribute to and are exacerbated by economic disadvantage (City-Wide). The main area in New Haven where gun violence occurs is in areas of low-income and poverty and the gun violence are being executed by the youth ages 15-24. In this day and age, we are living in a society where your income level determines your life expectancy, whether it is homicide, suicide or another form of violent activity. Living in New Haven and experiencing this first hand, I was able to see how the power and the struggle of poverty, low-income, gang wars and even drug activity can exacerbate gun violence. New Haven has as many as 2,500 people who are in gangs. These gangs lie in six neighborhoods in New Haven. The gangs being, The Ville, The Tre, The Tribe, The Jungle, The Island and The Hill hold responsibility

As it is well known gun violence is a major problem in today’s society, places like Chicago and New York City have a serious epidemic on their hands. It is not uncommon to hear about an incident where a gun was involved in these big cities on a day to day basis, but it’s not just the big cities, these type of things are happening nationwide. There has been an argument for many decades whether the cause of such violence is due to the lack of gun control laws or the restrictions put on firearms. Both sides of the isle will argue, the more liberal individual will tell you there is not enough while the conservative individual will tell you the laws put in place are too strict.

In the African American community, 83 percent of homicides are due to gun violence. In black communities gun violence is commonly misunderstood as gang affiliation, which is false. Studies show over 50 percent of gun crimes committed were not related to a felony, but were due to some disagreement. The gun epidemic in predominantly black communities aren’t just disagreements, but race wars, police brutality, gang related, and even no reason at all.

“Interview the survivors of mass shootings and you hear these phrases a lot: Gunfire, they explain, rarely sounds like what it is… Many who have lived through the terror recall thinking it was a joke. A drill. Anything except the awful truth: that they might have only a few seconds to live” (“Stop the Violence” -Brody 220). Some people say guns make us feel safer, but in reality, they cause more harm than good. Arthur Kellermann and his colleagues concluded that, “Sadly, buying a gun does not make you safer. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that bringing a gun into your home increases the chances you will be killed” (“Feeling safe” -Vyse 27). Gun violence poses a very big threat to the U.S. “The U.S. has many more guns--and gun deaths--than any other developed country. In 2014, there were more than 33,000 such deaths in this country” (“Fight Over” 12). Guns are extremely dangerous and many deaths occur due to them, including murder, suicide, and accidental deaths, so stricter gun laws and technology should be used to decrease the number of gun deaths in the U.S.

One major cause of Gun Violence is hatred, which can lead to many different outcomes. These outcomes can either have a good affect on some or a negative. For example, Getting caught and now having a criminal record. Some may learn from this and never commit another crime. The rest on the other hand can be more raged when released from jail. This will cause them to escalate down the same path as before. These people are causing the same problems to society as before. Therefore they are a living threat to everyone around them.

The availability of guns is responsible for the rise in violence among juveniles (Page par. 1). People who are in the presence of easy accessible weapons does not always tend have violent behaviors. Areas with a high crime rate tend to have more violent behaviors associated with assault weapons rather areas with low crime rates. So for the most part, time spent should be focused on areas with high crime rate such as New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. These areas are more prone to have problematic situations in regards to assault weapons due to the drug traffickers and gangs. According to the 1990 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, four states found that thirty five percent male and eleven percent of female students reported carrying a gun (Page par.3). That is of the people who complied and told the truth, there are a lot more people that are carrying weapons that should not be. In order for the streets of America to be safer, there needs to be laws and restrictions on this dangerous weapon.

The Orlando nightclub shooting in Florida on June 12, 2016 was the single largest massacre in U.S history, taking the lives of 50 individuals, including the shooter himself, and injuring 53 others. This is one extreme example of the gun violence that has been occurring in this country, but mass shootings like this and the one at Newton in 2012 are only a small part of our gun violence issue. The everyday gun violence that takes place in cities all across the United States claims the lives of thousands every single year. According to The Guardian, 33,500 civilians die each year because of gun brutality- “that’s about 1 life every 15 minutes” (Beckett). Between the years of 1999 and 2013, there were 464,003 gun deaths in the U.S, about 58% of them were suicides 37% were homicides. (ProCon.org) Gun violence and the consequences of that violence, have become a real and dangerous problem in the U.S , why else would the CDC list the United States as having the highest rate of gun violence out of all developed countries today? (Gale Opposing Viewpoints) This issue is not just attributable to a single factor, there are several that play an important part in why gun violence is such an issue in the U.S, namely laws and poverty; and in these causes we can also find solutions.

As far as overall gun violence is concerned, according to the FBI's 1998 Uniform Crime Reports, the overall violent crime rate in the US decreased about 7%. Robbery alone declined by 11%, the lowest since 1969. In addition, murder dropped by 7%, the lowest since 1967. More significantly, despite the fact the number of firearms and handguns owned by individual Americans continued to increase from 1997-1998, the FBI also reported the rate of firearms used to commit murder and robberies decreased in 1998. (1998 Uniform Crime Reports). These facts conclusively prove that firearms owned by peaceable citizens do not lead to increased murder or violent crime rates. In fact, they demonstrate that armed citizens lead to reduced rates of violent crime. When the gun is in the hands of a well-rounded person, it is no more of a weapon than your every day curling iron.

Handguns were used most often in homicides, most cases being in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s before falling to a low in 2008 (Cooper, et al.). Most gun involvement occurs with gang related activity, which increased from 73% in 1980 to 92% in 2008 (Cooper, et al.). The percentage of homicide victims killed with a gun increased with age of the victim until age 17, where it peaked at 79% and declined thereafter (Cooper, et al.). The sharp increase in homicides from the mid-1980’s through the early 1990’s, and much of the subsequent decline, is attributable to gun violence by teens and young adults (Cooper, et al.). From 1980 to 2008, more

Let me start by saying that in this everyday life time now, meaning this era and the generation that we're in are lead to believe that crime and picking up the gun is the only option to obtain whatever is needed! In my opinion, I don't believe that picking up a gun and abusing you to force the main key to an individual success. I certainly do not trivialize and glamorize the fact that an amount, percentage of people out there picking up a gun and using it for their own sake, for example, hurting someone innocent that works hard and pay taxes, or going out there just to hurt people as far as murders occurring and the other crime rates that pertain to a firearm. When living in an environment of destruction and corruption, you are thankful to