Top Ten Ways to Reduce Gun Violence in the U.S.

The War on Drugs has made violent crime skyrocket, especially gang-related crime. It does this in two ways. One, drugs are still easily accessible because of black markets. Black markets bring murder, theft, extortion, bribery, and other crimes, just like during the 1920s Prohibition.

Secondly, the US does a pretty terrible job of rehabilitating criminals. Therefore, if one goes to jail for several years, they are likely to come out violent and unchanged. Almost every single economist states that by ending the illegality of drugs, the crime rate will drop significantly.

Let's be honest. There are lots of people who don't deserve to own firearms. These people might have significant mental health issues or a serious criminal record. They may treat guns like toys instead of deadly objects or leave them out in the open, accessible to children. These people should not own guns, and in a perfect society, they wouldn't.

Sadly, they do, and there's little that we can do about it. After all, there will always be black markets. If more communities stressed the importance of gun safety and responsibility, gun deaths would fall. The evidence supports this. When more responsible people own guns, crime rates drop.

It's no secret that our mental health system is a complete joke. It's also no secret that a disproportionate amount of murders are committed by people with mental health issues. If we drastically increase funding, crime will fall.

The prison system needs to focus on rehabilitation rather than on punishment. There's little evidence that suggests that longer sentences reduce crime. Many studies claim that they actually increase crime by exposing inmates to violence and oppression on a day-to-day basis for years. Obviously, one is not going to come out of jail unscathed.

It's no secret that we have a culture of violence. Look at what's on TV. Half of the shows have someone beating someone up, shooting them, triggering an explosion, etc. It should be stressed to everyone that violence isn't admirable or attractive, and it shouldn't be glorified like it currently is.

Guns are a deadly weapon and should only be used if necessary.

One of the main causes of gun crime is poverty. To combat poverty, education can be improved, welfare can be reformed to encourage work, and the government can create a pro-growth tax plan, etc.

Alcohol is involved in around 40% of all crime. While we shouldn't ban alcohol, there are several things that we can do to discourage its abuse. We can raise taxes on alcohol. We can teach about its dangers in schools. We can copy South Dakota's policy of stripping people of their right to drink if they harm someone while intoxicated.

Evidence shows that when communities are more involved in their citizens' lives, violence decreases. Communities should be encouraged to help console past offenders and possible future offenders.

Black people disproportionately commit crimes in the U.S. Black families are also, on average, more impoverished. If we work harder to eradicate racism, poverty would be less common in black communities, which would lead to less violent crime.

Probably my most important comment on the entire site in a while, so hear me out for this one:

Gun violence, or any kind of violence ever in the US or anywhere in the world, can be reduced greatly by just not making certain people angry. Who are those people? I don't know. It could be anyone. But for all we know, violence has a starting point when someone gets mad due to something.

It could be from a terrible upbringing someone had as a child, where certain authority figures who were supposed to be responsible didn't act responsibly. It could be a person losing their job for unfair reasons, something that is on the hands of the supervisors in charge. Understand how villain origin stories are created because, in all cases, someone got wronged and wants to take it out on others for messing them up.

While all of the items on this list can work, they work better by not making the wrong people angry and desperate for revenge of some kind. Those angry people can end up doing or distributing drugs, losing their mental health, and ending up poor, racist, and drunk. They may just illegally find ways to get weapons to commit violence.

People in high positions need to understand that those under them can become their worst nightmare if made to feel mentally unstable. Anyone in a supervisory position must tread lightly because you do not want someone to snap.

Nobody should be allowed to buy a gun except the police and the military. If you want to hunt, you'll need to check out a gun from the government and check it back in when you're done. We need a zero-tolerance policy. It's just not worth it to let this go on.