The gun violence issue in the United States is very controversial and is composed of many different aspects. As time goes on, this problem is growing in size and needs a solution badly. Among possible solutions to this problem is the proposal of another Assault Weapons Ban as well as the option of improved background checks. Currently there is legislation that enforces background checks as a mean to reduce gun violence, but this legislation needs improving in order to increase the effectiveness of it. Although both have been well argued to help fix this problem, many Americans including myself do not believe that people should have their rights to a gun taken away with a ban. Similar to the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, a new ban would restrict everyone from any weapons that fall into the specifications of the banned guns in the ban. Supporters frequently believe that assault weapons have no use to a common citizens, even  hunters, and banning them will supposedly fix the gun violence issue. Much to their surprise, a new ban would do these things but it still wouldn't impact issue as well as improving background checks would. At this point you're probably wondering "How on Earth is a BAN on guns going to do less than just improving the restricted access to them?", but by looking at several credible sources pertaining to this issue, we can see that improving background checks is a feasible solution unlike others, current background check legislation has already shown potential and effectiveness despite a few flaws, and that the horrible mass shootings aren't the majority of the gun violence issue at stake, which proves that background checks would be more effective than another Assault Weapons Ban at increasing gun control in the United States.

The debate over the solution to the gun violence issue has become much larger over time, with many people supporting various proposed solutions. This is an important aspect of this issue because the solution must be favorable by a majority in order to get passed in congress, which requires support from both parties. Improving background checks is a feasible approach to tackling this national crisis because more people from both political parties support them than another assault weapons ban, which gets its majority of support from the democratic party. The problem with this is that the congress is controlled by the republicans at the moment, so getting a liberally supported idea passed is not likely to happen. Since this debate has been going on for decades, people are getting tired of the arguing and getting nothing done and want to at least get something passed for the sake of solving the growing problem at hand. Because of this, more democrats are supporting the improvement of background checks over another ban, as well as for other reasons. In "Why Democrats Aren't Pushing Another Assault Weapons Ban", a father who's child was shot in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting says "We work hard to try to stay out of the political divisiveness that comes with this debate" in order to show that this issue should have a collective effort to solve the problem for the sake of stopping horrible crime, not a debate for political reasons (Wheaton). For a long time this debate has been considered political because the democrats want to enact a ban while the republicans value the 2nd Amendment and would rather act otherwise, so the controversy would result in nothing happening at all because of the conflict between the parties. The father of the shooting victim, Mark Barden, thinks that assault weapons are absurd but knows that supporting a ban as the solution isn't favorable enough to pass in congress and be enacted. This means that it is crucial for the solution to have wide support in order to make it past congress and actually impact the gun violence issue. Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, thinks that background checks fall right into the common ground of this debate which makes them feasible. Dan did a TED Talk back in 2014 called “Why gun violence can't be our new normal”, in which he explains that the frequent mass shootings and the daily shootings that go unheard of have become too commonplace and that a solution needs to be passed as soon as possible. He goes on to show that improving background checks is a great solution because the idea is “not keeping certain guns from all people, it’s about keeping ALL guns from certain people” (Gross). What he means is that a ban effects the guns and does nothing to regulate the dangerous people while background checks would focus on all people buying guns and keeping all firearms away from everyone but trusted citizens. Although this shows the logic of how improving background checks would work, the real important factor of this solution is that “90% of Americans support improving Brady background checks” (Gross). The outstanding support for more background check legislation shows why it should be the choice solution to the gun violence issue. With ninety percent approval, this legislation shows more potential in congress than other options, which is the primary concern at this point since the goal is to finally get something passed. The importance of a solution that is favorable by the majority and the overwhelming support for improving background checks helps to show that background checks would be more effective than another ban.

Background checks aren’t just favorable, they are credible for being effective because of the impact made by the current background check legislation, despite the few flaws that need to be fixed by improving background checks. In 1994, the same year the Assault Weapons Ban was enacted, the Brady Law was passed. Since then, all gun purchases from federally licensed gun dealers require a background check to be conducted before a sale can be made. The president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says that since 1994, background checks have already prevented over 2.4 million gun sales from happening. This progress is impressive, but a few flaws in the legislation restrict background checks from maximizing the potential they have. These flaws are exactly what improving the Brady Law will aim to fix. A report published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health titled "The Case for Gun Policy Reforms in America", uses data about crime and firearms to make logical suggestions about how to improve gun control. The report considers background checks to be a great solution, but it points out that "The ability of the Brady law to reduce homicides and suicides is greatly diminished by the giant loophole for private firearm sales that criminals and traffickers exploit" (Webster). Currently only federally licensed gun dealers have to conduct background checks, but private sales don't require one. This provides a popular way for criminals to obtain a gun without being checked. Astonishingly "nearly 80 percent of those who had used a handgun in crime had acquired it through a transaction with an individual who wasn't a licensed gun dealer", which shows not only magnitude of this loophole, but more importantly the potential increase in gun control if background checks are improved (Webster). Just last year we saw this loophole used by Dylann Roof to acquire a gun privately from his father and commit a shooting inside a church in South Carolina. In "The legal loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to get a gun" published by the Washington Post, the private sale loophole is explained as it applies to the shooting case. The article notes that Roof had pending felony charges for drug possession, which wouldn't allow him to pass a background check. Since "South Carolina is one of the 40 states that do not require background checks for private gun transactions", Roof easily obtained the gun he used to kill eight people under no security (Guo). This loophole proves to be a big problem since it's available in 40 out of the 50 states. With improved background checks, "Anyone trying to sell or give Roof a gun would have had to take him to a licensed dealership or a law enforcement office to complete the transaction" which would have prevented this horrible shooting (Guo). The private sale loophole is one flaw in the background check system that enables way too much crime. If it is fixed my improved background check legislation, we are sure to see more effective results. Since 40 states in the country do not regulate private gun sale, there is a lack of unity shown between the states to enact the same legislation and communicate. This goes into the second flaw of the background check system: state accessibility. Background checks use records like mental health, drug, and criminal records to validate whether the person passes the check or not. States make these records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in order to be used for background check purposes. A report on "Sharing Promising Practices and Assessing Incentives Could Better Position Justice to Assist States in Providing Records for Background Checks", published by the United States Government Accountability Office, found that "From 2004 to 2011, the total number of mental health records that states made available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) increased by approximately 800 percent –from about 126,000 to 1.2 million records- although a variety of challenges limited states' ability to share such records" (Cha). This evidence shows that many records have been shared, but that problems with state accessibility prevent the sharing of many more. This is a crucial fix to make because it directly affects how many important records the system has to conduct checks with, which means that more records will yield more effect and strength of background checks to positively impact gun violence. If it only took 7 years with challenges to grow the record system by 800 percent, imagine how much more it would grow without these restrictions. The key to achieving this is by improving background checks because this flaw is an example of exactly what would be addressed by doing so. The work already done by background checks proves them to be effective against gun violence, and the potential gains to be made by fixing the private sale loophole and states' record accessibility show how improving background checks is a better course of action to improve gun control than implementing another ban. 

The horrible mass shootings shown on the news from time to time spark a lot of controversy afterwards about how the shootings could be prevented with another Assault Weapons Ban. Although the proposal of another ban makes sense considering the shooters usually commit their crime with an assault weapon, these shootings are surprisingly the least of the issue. When a shooting happens, people wrongly view that assault weapons are the problem because of how many people one can potentially kill. The real problem is that dangerous people are getting their hands on guns in the first place, regardless of type. A Washington Post article published after the Orlando nightclub massacre supports banning assault weapons for the wrong reasons. In "Assault weapons must be banned in America", author Eugene Robinson argues that another Assault Weapons Ban is what the gun violence issue needs "Because other proposed solutions would violate the letter and spirit of the constitution- and surely wouldn't work anyway" (Robinson). He is mistaken because one of the main arguments against another ban is that it violates the 2nd Amendment, which is valued by many people for different reasons. Also, I explained earlier that there is not enough support for another ban to be passed which means that this solution "wouldn't work anyway" (Robinson). Mass shootings are causing people to believe that a ban is the solution because of the assault weapons used, which draws attention away from more effective solutions like background checks that prevent sales of all guns. This gives people the wrong view on the gun violence issue because efforts get focused on trying to reduce mass shootings instead of the way bigger homicide rate as a whole. This confusion is leading some people to overlook background checks as the right solution because they want to stop the sale of assault weapons primarily. This is not to say that these people do not support background checks, but they are not aware of the bigger potential that background checks have to reduce gun violence. Robinson says "Should there be universal background checks for gun purchases? Yes, of course. But the Orlando killer passed a background check" to show that he thinks background checks are necessary but insufficient (Robinson). It is true that the killer passed a background check, but action should be taken to fix the issue in the legislation that let him pass rather than proposing another ban that will fail to gain enough support. The killer was on a terrorism watch list for some time and was later taken off of it, which is something that improved background checks would red flag and disapprove of in the future. What ban supporters do not understand is that another ban on assault rifles would only affect rifle homicides instead of all homicides by firearms in general. Data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) confirms that assault rifles are not the worst of the gun violence issue. The 2015 UCR report on homicides in the United States found that 67 percent of homicides that year were committed with a handgun, while only a mere 2 percent were committed with a rifle (FBI). This data justifies improving background checks rather than enacting another ban because they would impact 100 percent of homicides committed with a firearm as opposed to only targeting a small 2 percent of them. Basically, background checks serve as a ban of all guns to certain people while a ban just keeps one type of weapon from everyone. Even if assault rifles got banned, handguns that account for two thirds of homicides committed with a firearm would not be affected which would lessen the impact on gun violence greatly. Because of this, all of the work to gain support for another ban would not be worth the time nor the small amount of potential it has to improve the homicide rate. By negating the arguments for another ban as well as showing that the scope of the ban is too small to significantly affect the gun violence issue, it is easy to see that improving background checks would be the more effective solution of the two.

The gun violence issue at hand is begging us to improve it because of the costs it demands. These costs are primarily the thousands of people we lose every year and also the monetary cost on people and the government. The monetary costs are less impactful on society than the deaths of the victims since life is priceless, but the money adds up to a lot for the obvious medical costs of the victims and the bigger government cost to deal with homicides. The huge government costs are explained in Phillip J. Cook's book, "Gun Violence: The Real Costs", where he says that "Because murders are more costly to investigate, prosecute, and punish than robberies and assaults, and since guns intensify criminal attacks, gun violence increases the costs of administering the criminal justice system in the United States. We estimate this additional cost to be over $2 billion per year" (Cook). The painful expenses from the gun violence issue are what urge action to be taken. The lost billions of dollars mentioned by Cook exacerbates the need to act as soon as possible in order to reduce the toll of growing gun violence. There are a lot of lives at stake for this issue, making it crucial to capitalize on choosing the solution with more potential impact on gun violence. The astounding support for improving background checks shows that it is a very attainable option, the current impact and possible gains from fixing their legislative flaws uncover the large impact potential of improving them, and raw date that points out the insignificance of another ban shows how it is not worthwhile to enact another one. All of these points together clearly demonstrate how improving background checks is a much better answer to the national gun violence problem than another ban.
