From the beginning of their creation, firearms have been symbols of military superiority and sophistication, and self-reliance. Gun’s capacity to deliver forceful, accurate blows from far distances makes them the most efficient standard issue weapons in history. Communities of farmers armed with guns became some of the most effective militias the world has ever seen, and played a pivotal role in defeating the British Empire. The United States of America was thus born out of the efforts of an armed civilian population, and firearms thereby became a symbol of freedom and American grit. As time and technology progressed, firearms have become more lethal, and America has established a firm foundation on the global stage, thereby raising questions about the purpose of firearms in modern society. With the recent trend of increased mass shootings, criticism towards firearms has gotten more focused and intense. In response, American gun advocates often make the claim that firearms have a deterrence effect on violence and crime, thus benefitting the public health. They argue that in a society without guns’ criminals will still find means to acquire them, and will be more likely to commit crimes without the fear of being shot. While civilians use guns to stop and prevent crime, guns claim far more lives than they save. Places with a high volume of firearms typically have higher rates of firearm related deaths via suicide, accidents, crimes of passion, and domestic disputes than places with few guns. Psychological studies have also found that even simple images of guns have an automatic priming effect, thus causing people to think and act more aggressively than they usually would. In most cases, firearms make society less safe, and a major societal shift in the way Americans view firearm’s place in society must take place to properly address this problem. 

‘Firearm related death’ refers any incident in which a gun was the instrument used to end a life. This includes homicide, suicide, and accidents. It is important to distinguish the firearm related death rate from the firearm homicide rate, for the former can be large when the latter is not. To fully assess firearms impact on public safety, all negative health effects must be considered. Where there are more guns, guns kill more people, and the association between firearm related death and gun ownership remains consistent among most modern countries. In a study published in the American Journal of Medicine, researchers found that countries with low gun ownership, like Japan with less than one gun per hundred-thousand people, the firearm death rate was significantly low compared to countries with high rates of gun ownership. The study found that the united states had the highest rate of gun fatalities (10.2 per 100,000), and has the highest rate of gun ownership among developed countries (Boseley, 2013). While similar finding have been found in multiple studies of this nature many still argue that it is difficult to make accurate comparisons between the USA and other modern nations because of large demographic and socioeconomic differences. In addressing this concern, one can observe the variables of gun related death and gun availability, which can be determined by level of firearm regulation, among US states. State firearm death rate data from the Center for Disease Control, and state gun law data from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show a clear association between the two variables. The five states with the highest levels of gun fatalities, also have some of the highest rates of gun ownership in the country, while the opposite is found in states with low gun ownership and highly regulated gun markets. In fact, starting from the top and going down the state gun death ranking list and looking at the gun legislation chart for each consecutive state, not one state has a single effective piece of legislation in effect to limit the distribution of firearms until number fourteen, Nevada which only has one law allowing private dealers to conduct voluntary background checks on buyers. The first effective regulation did not appear on list until number 20, Oregon, which requires background checks at gun shows (The Guardian, 2013; The Violence Policy Center, 2016). One may argue that the homicide rate has been on a steady decline as the rate of gunowners has risen. Therefore, the only explanation for high firearm death rates among gun prevalent states would be a high number of what the FBI refers to as “Justifiable Homicides”, when a citizen or police officer kills a perpetrator in an act of self-defense, or in defense of the public. And yes, the national homicide rate has declined, appearing to coincide with a spike in gun sales, but the numbers simply do not support the claim that armed civilians make a significant difference in controlling crime. In 2012 there were 592 justifiable homicides with a firearm in the United States, and only 219 of the shooters were civilians with the rest being law enforcement. On the other hand, the US saw a total of 12765 murders in 2012 and 69.4% were perpetrated using firearms- about 8,859 Americans. The number of firearm related homicides would then be about 9,451 with civilian-perpetrated justifiable homicides accounting for just 2.32% of those deaths (FBI Expanded Homicide Data, 2012). When calculating total firearm related death, that number will get significantly smaller than it already is, for the above data does not include data on suicide or accidents. The fact of the matter is, on both an international and domestic scale, guns share a strong positive association with violence and death. 

An even stronger association is present between guns and suicide. A special report by Madeline Drexler, an editor for Harvard Public Health described how gun owners and their families are more likely to commit suicide than non-gun owning families. Having a gun in the house not only puts the gun owner at risk, but also the lives of their spouse and children.  State level data also was described, “rates of firearm suicides in states with the highest rates of gun ownership are 3.7 times higher for men and 7.9 times higher for women, compared with states with the lowest gun ownership—though the rates of non-firearm suicides are about the same”, therefore the presence of firearms bares a connection to the likelihood of suicide (Miller, Hemenway, 2008). This is not suggesting that guns making people suicidal. In fact, when researchers at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found that a smaller percentage of gun owners claim to have attempted suicide than non-gun owners. Catherine Barber, director of the HICRC, explained the association between gun owners and suicide, “it’s not that gun owners are more suicidal. It’s that they’re more likely to die if they become suicidal, because they are using a gun”, so gun prevalent states see higher rates of firearm suicide fatalities due to the extreme lethality of the most common means of suicide, guns. Lethality is an important thing to consider, for it is what makes firearms so dangerous. The Harvard researchers found that people kill themselves with guns more often than all other attempted means combined, but that guns are not the most common way in which Americans attempt suicide (Drexler, 2014). This shows that survivability is dramatically reduced in suicide attempts with firearms compared to any other means. Drexler argues the impulsivity of suicide and describes the nature of suicide as “episodic”, and majority of suicide attempters, “act in a moment of brief but heightened vulnerability.” When means of suicide are used alternative to firearms, chance of survival is far greater, and most attempters who survive never go on to attempt suicide again. Drug overdoses, for example, are the most common means of suicide attempts but only 3% of attempts are fatal. Suicide attempts by firearm are lethal 85% of the time. When someone uses a gun in an act for suicide, all it takes is to pull a small trigger. They never see blood, never feel pain, or hear the noise of the gun. Instead it’s lights out immediately. Suicide affects tens of thousands of families every year. In 2010 38,364 Americans killed themselves, and 19,392 of those people used a gun to do it. That’s more than half (50.54%). Out of those 19,392, how many had children, parents, friends, and loved ones? How many lives and families are Americans willing sacrifice for their obsession with firearms? Most people who lose their lives to guns are innocent everyday citizens, therefore there is no doubt that firearms are an overall negative to public safety.