President Obama has announced that the topic of focus during his final year as president will be gun control. He has announced some factors that he believes contributes to our high rate of gun deaths. However, the president is continuing the failed rhetoric of previous gun control advocates. Part of which is flat out false, the rest is misleading.

The first thing the president says is that Americans are not more violent than other developed nations, but our citizens simply have more access to firearms. His statement is inherently flawed because the number of firearms and access to these firearms has never been linked to gun violence. As a matter of fact, the number of guns and gun owners in the United States has been increasing consistently over the last four years, while gun violence and almost all violent crime in general has been decreasing in that same time frame. It is important to note here however that correlation does not prove causation. Which is also relevant when I mention Switzerland. The Swiss have the second highest firearm ownership rate per capita in the world. Yet they have the one of the lowest violent crime rates in Europe. The Swiss have easy access to firearms. Almost comparable to the U.S, but with some different regulations. Until a few years ago Swiss firearm ownership was almost universal due to their practice of universal conscription. Again, the Swiss have had a strong gun culture and a high firearm ownership rate for a long time now, yet they still have a much lower crime rate than other European countries.

The second error in his statement is that easy access to guns is “the only variable” that separates the US and other developed nations. First off, the Swiss example disproves his statement outright. Another thing to keep in mind is that many European countries have been relatively homogenous nations. France is French. Germany is German. Britain is British. The US is not. We are made up of all of these nationalities and more. The US is a melting pot of culture and ethnicity. Though today we are closer to harmony than ever before, there has been a legacy of discrimination and oppression in this nation. If you look at the victims of gun violence they tend to be from these formerly oppressed groups. From minorities in the inner city. In the Democratic debate, when Sanders called gun violence an urban issue and not a rural issue he was not wrong. Neither was Hillary Clinton when she said it was a Black issue, not a white issue. Though she said that in an attempt to make Sanders appear racist, or insensitive. It is not entirely false. Of the thirty or so people killed each day in firearm homicides, over half are African Americans. Specifically those in cities like Detroit and Chicago. The real question should be why? Why is twelve percent of the population accounting for over half of the firearm deaths?

Gun control will not change anything. A prominent politician from Australia has come out and said that Australia’s model should not be followed. He said that since guns are now almost impossible to own as a private citizen “We are a nation of victims”. Meanwhile “There’s a very vigorous black market for guns, so it’s not made the slightest bit of difference; if you want a gun, you can get one.” This really hits home in the case of US gun violence. Most of the firearms used in crime are bought illegally or stolen. If we as a nation addressed the societal issues behind gun violence, then we could save lives without taking away constitutional rights.

http://www.infowars.com/dont-adopt-our-gun-control-laws-australian-politician-tells-us/