Over the past couple of weeks, I have reported on how the European Union and the United States differ in their views on issues such as cybersecurity regulation,  and The “Russia Issue”. However, it would be wrong to not speak on a topic in this type of karmic moment such as this one. The issue? Gun control.

If there is one issue that the European Union and the United States of America disagree on or have different viewpoints on, it would be gun control. The European Union has a drastically different perspective on gun ownership and the regulations it takes to have a gun. According to CNN, a Pew Research Center poll in 2017 found that 42% of Americans live in households with guns. What is shocking, however, is that there is no official way to measure how many guns Americans own because there is no law that forces gun owners to register their guns, many of the guns are acquired illegally also. It is also important to note that CNN reports that 70% of the people that own guns in the United States report that they own handguns and that the rest of the gun owners either owned shotguns or rifles. In contrast, 90% of citizens under the European Union have ever owned a gun in their whole lives.(European Union). Additionally, it was reported that of the European citizens, 38% report that they have a gun for hunting and 24% have a gun because they are a police officer, in the army, or are security workers (EU). It is surprising that the European Union which consists of people from many different cultures, government types, and geographical locations can agree that strict regulations on the ownership of guns is important and not a burden.The US has also been known also to have low regulations on what hands these dangerous weapons fall into.

 

In the United States, in order to legally purchase a gun according to the New York Times is “1. pass an instant background check that considers criminal convictions, domestic violence, and immigration status 2. Buy a gun” (New York Times). It is clear to see that in order to buy a gun in the United States is done with little to no regulation on who the person buying the gun is. In some states in America there are some stricter regulations that include waiting periods or more in depth background checks. However, it is not a law that if you purchase a gun from somewhere outside of a store, such as from a neighbor or a relative, that a background check is required. The countries that are under the regulations of the European Union have a different system for purchasing guns. Even though it varies from country to country, the level of strictness for getting a gun legally is essentially the same. For example, there is a six step process that a citizen must go through before one can even purchase a gun in Germany. These steps, according to the Wall Street Journal include, “1. Joining a shooting club, obtain a hunting license, demonstrate you are a gun collector or prove that your life is threatened. 2. Demonstrate specialized knowledge of firearms, which may involve a written exam and practical demonstration of safe handling. 3. If you are under 25, submit a certificate of mental fitness from a public health officer or doctor. 4. Arrange proper firearm storage. 5. Pass a background check that considers criminal history, mental health and drug addiction. 6. Apply for a permit to purchase a specific gun, which may include an additional short background review. 7. Buy a gun” (Wall Street Journal). In addition to these strict guidelines to getting a gun, a citizen of Germany also agrees that the government is allowed to conduct random “home checks” to make sure that the gun is being kept safely and being used for the right purposes.

The European Union’s stricter gun laws have proven to be effective in lowering the amount of gun violence. According to the Flemish Peach Institute’s fact sheet on deaths from firearms in the EU, they report that each year there are approximately 6,700 deaths from guns. Within these 6,700 deaths, 5,000 are caused by suicides. Compared to the United States, this number seems to be a small fraction of the 13,000 gun homicides per year (Everytown). In 2016 alone there were 14,925 homicides caused by guns; that’s an average of 35 homicides a day occuring in the United States. It is clear that the government in America needs to take a stand against gun violence in light of the recent events of mass shootings.

 

The European Union’s almost exhausting process to own a gun has proven to be effective in protecting its citizens from gun violence. This is seen in the drastically lower number of gun related deaths throughout the countries under the EU. The United States needs to pay attention to the regulations from the European Union on how to better regulate who is in possession of a gun so the citizens of the US are protected. The EU has shown active concern for their citizens’ safety and has not put the opinions of its gun owning citizens at the forefront of their policies on gun control. In order to make sure that gun deaths is a disappearing issue in citizens’ lives, policies must be made with the safety of its citizens in mind.

 

Sources:

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/#YearlyGunMurders

https://www.flemishpeaceinstitute.eu/sites/vlaamsvredesinstituut.eu/files/files/factsheet_firearms_and_deaths_in_eu.pdf

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/politics/guns-dont-know-how-many-america/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/02/world/international-gun-laws.html

http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/flash/fl_383_en.pdf

 

According to Cybint, since 2013 there have been 3,809,448 records stolen from cyber breaches every day, that’s 44 records stolen every second of every day (Cybint). Now more than ever we are in great danger of putting our personal, medical, and financial information at risk of being stolen or compromised by cybercriminals. Globally there are approximately 50 to 200 billion devices that will be linked to the internet by 2020. However, the frightening truth is that “only 38% of global organizations claim that they are prepared to handle a sophisticated cyber attack” (Cybint). The European Union in recent years has taken this issue of cybersecurity to the forefront of its security policy and is on the cutting edge of legislature that protects its citizens from becoming vulnerable to attacks.

 

The European Union has adopted many strategies to protect users against cyber attacks and has made laws stricter as well for these cybercriminals or “hackers” who intend to steal information within the government. In 2013 the European Union passed the Directive on Attacks against Information Systems which states that countries who are a part of the European Union are required to “strengthen national cybercrime laws and introduce tougher criminal sanctions”. This was one of the first major legislation passed to show the severity of the threats of cyber attacks in Europe. This directive also led to many other laws being passed such as the directive on combating the sexual exploitation of children online and child pornography. This directive that was passed was one of the first pieces of legislature to recognize “grooming” by sexual predators over the internet as a criminal offense. The European Union’s innovative laws on cybersecurity set the stage for the rest of the world to take the many potential exploits and attacks into serious consideration.

 

In America in 2016, about 14 billion dollars was invested in cybersecurity measures alone as opposed to the EU which invested just over 7 million in cybersecurity measures. America’s first big legislation passed in regards to cyber security in over 10 years was passed in 2015 with the passage of the Cybersecurity Act of 2015. This act requires corporations to report if a cyber attack has occured to the Department of Homeland Security so it can be analyzed and prevented for the future. In contrast to the EU, the United States does not require companies to be protected on a technological level against cyber attacks as it does in the European Union.  The European Union has recently passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which requires companies to be protected to a certain extent that has been laid out in the bill that was passed. If companies do not comply with the standards set up by the EU they will be fined and will continue to be fined if they continue to not cooperate. The key differences seen between the two approaches to cybersecurity between the EU and the United States is described in the article by American Security Today. In the article it states, “The US approaches cybersecurity with homeland security as the main goal…. the EU’s approach clearly has the goal of protecting the EU citizens’ data and leans more toward privacy concerns for the individual” (Swanner). Although this may be true, both of these governing bodies need to come together and make mandated laws that are standard across all borders of the world because the truth is that cybersecurity is not a “homeland” issue, it is a global issue. Unfortunately in the United States as well cybersecurity, like so many issues, has become bipartisan.

 

In 2016, President Obama issued a statement when the Cybersecurity National Action Plan was being passed. In the statement he layed out that we need to better protect not just our private sector systems but the systems of all Americans so we can protect our privacy as users of the internet. He stated, “We’re confident that this is going to be the kind of product that is of great importance to everybody.  And this is not an ideological issue that should divide Washington along party lines. This is something that everybody has got an interest in getting right” (White House). President Obama’s urgency and hope from this initiative was short lived. When the Trump Administration came into office, many of the officials on the board that advises Homeland Security on cybersecurity measures resigned under the Trump Administration. Senator John McCain even stated that “unfortunately, leadership from the executive branch on cybersecurity has been weak” (Tech Crunch). Trump not taking cybersecurity laws seriously has impacted the relationship with the EU and America after Trump tweeted that he wanted to work with, you guessed it, Russia on cybersecurity measures which is ironic after Russia has recently been accused of meddling in America’s own elections. This news came a shock to those in the EU as they have been trying to keep Russia out of their upcoming elections. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, even suggested that Trump’s idea to work with Russia wasn’t all that crazy. She stated, “[It] doesn’t mean we ever trust Russia,” she said, according to The Guardian. ‘We can’t trust Russia, and we won’t ever trust Russia. But you keep those that you don’t trust closer so that you can always keep an eye on ’em and keep them in check’ ” (PRI). This statement alarmed many in the European Union as well because they do not consider Russia to be their ally as they do with the United States. Any suggestion to work at all with Russia on any type of cyber security or legislation would be shot down in the European Union hurting the relationship between the EU and the US. Although the European Union has made up its mind that cybersecurity should be integrated into the government and should focus on the interest of the citizens rather than solely on the private sectors, the United States is not taking the issue as seriously.

 

The European Union and the United States need to take measures to pass laws that protect the privacy of citizens while mandating security measures that should be taken by corporations so breeches such as the recent Yahoo cyber attack, where 3 billion Yahoo users’ information was compromised,  is a thing of the past. There is no such thing as a secure network in cyberspace but there are so many measures that can be taken by global citizens to recognize their vulnerabilities and use controls to prevent the threats that their systems are vulnerable to.

 

Works Cited:

Ackerman , Bob. “The Trump Team Has Failed to Address the Nation’s Mounting Cybersecurity Threats.” Tech Crunch, 17 Oct. 2017, techcrunch.com/2017/10/17/the-trump-team-has-failed-to-address-the-nations-mounting-cybersecurity-threats/.

“European Leaders ‘Worried’ after Trump Suggests Working with Russia on Cybersecurity.” Public Radio International, 10 July 2017, www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-10/european-leaders-worried-after-trump-suggests-working-russia-cybersecurity.

“Remarks by the President on the Cybersecurity National Action Plan.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/17/remarks-president-cybersecurity-national-action-plan.

“The Scary Truth About Cybersecurity .” Cybint, Cybint News , 26 Sept. 2017, www.cybintsolutions.com/cyber-security-facts-stats/.

“US vs. EU Cybersecurity Policy.” American Security Today, 23 June 2016, americansecuritytoday.com/us-vs-eu-cybersecurity-policy/.

 

For too long has the United States been put at the forefront of the political discussion in the news. Living in America, the majority of what citizens are exposed to is how the United States is imposing policies and interacting in various diplomatic acts with other countries around the world. However, whether the citizens and the government of the United States recognize it or not the US is just an actor on a much larger global stage. It is amazing to me that many citizens in the United States are uninformed about how bigger players on the global stage operate and what their stance is on global issues throughout the world. One of these “actors” which remains one of the largest alliances ang influencers of global policy is the European Union.

 

The European Union was established on November 1, 1993 in the Netherlands as a way for Europe to form an alliance to make policies that would benefit the entirety of Europe. The European Union also deals with many of the same challenges that the United States is dealing with today. The interaction of the European Union and the United States in recent months has reached a low point since the Trump Administration has gone against many of the policies that the European Union has tried to impose. One of the biggest issues that the people of America and the people under the European Union are facing is Russia.

 

Russia has been a problem facing the European Union long before Russia was even being spoken about in the United States. It began towards the end of the Cold War when Russia tried to recruit countries to join their Union instead of joining what would become the European Union. Russia has been causing recent problems for the European Union because they  have been displaying propaganda against the EU during election season. Many in the EU also believe that Russia has been involved in rigging many of the elections throughout Europe as well as the United States. According to Equal Times, “European governments see Moscow’s fingerprints on many of the recent problems facing the EU; especially after what happened with the illegal separatist referendum in the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia on 1 October, in the presidential elections in May in France or in the general elections in the Netherlands in March. In all three countries, the respective national authorities denounced the attempts to influence these processes through support for radical parties, hacking and massive disinformation” (Equal Times). The European Union, specifically the new French President Emmanuel Macron is now pushing  for laws to be implemented that does now allows for Russia to publish propaganda during election seasons. The European Union and Russia’s relations, a division that has not been recently created, has caused the EU to create harsh sanctions against the seemingly rogue country to prove that their illegal behavior will not be tolerated. 

 

Additionally the European Union, since Russian advancement into the Crimea, has put sanctions on Russia’s trade and access to the markets. The decision to place these sanctions on Russia is another example as to why the European Union and Russia do not have close relations compared to the other countries that the EU is allied with. The problem with these sanctions to Russia and the EU alike are that they rely on each other for trade and could face major economic downfalls. BBC news offers an opinion to the sanctions on Russia that were implemented after the invasion of Russia in the Crimea. BBC news states, “Even in this grim setting, the EU remains Russia’s biggest market. This is a major contrast to the Cold War, even a source of hope, but it does not rule out a further deterioration of relations” (BBC). The relations between the EU and Russia, although being almost always seen as a rivalry that is just a constant grudge match between the two countries are actually rooted in deeper more complicated motives such as disagreements on human rights, and political views. Many politicians in the EU are hopeful that one day they can join with Russia to create an economic powerhouse on the global stage but until then they are challenged with detecting and sanctioning any illegal acts the country may make. 

 

The European Union is known around the world to be one of the largest players on the political stage and it is imperative that the United States and the people of the US do not forget to acknowledge the issues and resolutions going on within foreign governments because they could be key causes to issues going on in our own country. The European Union is refusing to accept the fact that the President of the United States is turning a blind eye to Russia who are using cyberware and their illegal actions against countries closer to Russian territory. In doing this Russia is succeeding in not only driving a wedge between their relationship with other European countries that could be crucial to their economic status even as a communist country, but also strengthening the divide between the EU and the United States. So what is the solution for a problem caused by one country? The possible answer for the Europeans is summarized by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel during one of her campaign speeches. During a time when England was leaving the EU and the trust in the United States government was at an all time low, she stated, “Europeans will undoubtedly have to take our destiny into our own hands,” (Equal Times).

 

Sources:

https://www.equaltimes.org/spies-hackers-and-gas-pipelines#.WmjPbpM-eu5

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35154633\

Welcome to Sites At Penn State. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!