Justine Damond: America Has A Culture Of Violence

There can be many causes of violence that affect a person or a group of people to carry out acts of violence targeting specific people or a specific institution. There are dozens of potential triggers. The main one to focus on is violence in the media. The media is able to portray violence all day long thanks to social media, 24-hour news channel, newspapers, radio broadcasts etc. It is easier for the media to use these various outlets to broadcast violence because we are always plugged in via our phones, tablets, laptops, computers etc. It is often said that the United States of America was conceived and nurtured by violence. Americans not only engage in violence; they are entertained by it.

I want to compare the US to some nations that are very similar and culture and beliefs. To start I want to compare it to the UK(England and Wales). Culturally we're very similar having originally come from England. And the United Kingdom having possession of an automatic firearm sending out a firearm or a handgun is prohibited. They have tried to make it as hard as possible for anyone to possess a firearm with hours of paperwork and third-party references required. This is a result of a massacre that happened in 1987 resulting in 16 people dead and another nine years later after school shooting took the lives of 16 children and their teacher. with all of the strict laws their homicide rate lies around 1.1 per 100,000. This is compared to about 5 per 100,000 in the US from Senate call University. To counter that argument the UK has a higher robbery rate then in the US, this could be due to the fact that store owners have no way to protect themselves. Another alarming statistic is that the UK has higher sexual violence rate than the US. This is surprising thing that the US

This year alone has been more than 400 deaths in result to gunshots; in Germany there has been 4. So with that being said there’s something we aren’t doing right in the United States. In my opinion the United States should improve education requirements as well as training intensity to get the cops to realize that the pulling your gun out shouldn’t be your first option. I am convinced that the better training as well as the almost nonexistence of weapons in private households is a key factor.

As Americans, living in a egotistical and self centered society, we often think that we are the best, the top 1 percent in every aspect. However, When compared to other countries of the world, America is ranked 14th in education, 44th in health care efficiency, and 101th in peace. But it ranks first in incarceration, 2nd in ignorance, and 3rd in global competitiveness. One can see how the rankings that America is top in are those that promote violence in one way or another. In the book Violence and Culture: A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Approach by Jack David Eller, the author discusses violence in American society in one of his chapters. In this chapter, he mentions some social characteristics that represents and plays a role in

What has America come to? Although the articles, “We’re No.1(1)!” written by Thomas Friedman, and the article “Violence is Who We Are,” by Steven Crichley, have different overall subjects, they have a similar arguments. The world isn’t as great as it used to be, we are lacking good leadership, and we happily invite wrong doings into our lives.

The idea of violence is instilled in everyone’s head in some way or another. From the time we are born we are equipped with the idea that we must react when we are upset. When someone affects us in a negative way, there is an idea in our minds that urges us to fight back or cause harm to that person. This idea of causing harm stays with us from childhood until we take our last breath. Since 2013, there have been 242 school shootings within America. Even worse, there have been over a thousand mass shootings in the country resulting in mass casualties. Most recently, one single man murdered fifty-eight people at a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada and injured over 240 others. Although the motive may have been different between these shootings, one thing remains the same for all of them, the act of violence.

American society is a safer place than it was many years ago and safer than many countries across the world. A statistic from Crime in the United States, 2016 stated that law enforcement agencies made approximately 10.7 million arrests in 2016. This is not a huge number when you compare it to the population of the United States, approximately 325.7 million. Crime in America peaked in 1991 and had fallen steadily for 25 years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. This is why I do not think American society is over-criminalized. I think we as a society experience crime and many terrible things, but I believe that there is a lot of peace among us that does not get communicated as much as the terrible things do. Crime varies drastically

In order to understand gun violence in America, we should get an understanding of our history of guns and how they came to into existence and their purpose. The main purpose for guns was to kill, intimidate, and take by force. As far back in time as we can go, in order to survive, whether for food or protection, our ancestors have always had a need for weapons. And as time evolved simple arrowheads for protection and hunting would change into something more lethal. Although guns were first manufactured in china the 1300’s, the first guns came to America around the 1400’s on ships

The Orlando nightclub shooting in Florida on June 12, 2016 was the single largest massacre in U.S history, taking the lives of 50 individuals, including the shooter himself, and injuring 53 others. This is one extreme example of the gun violence that has been occurring in this country, but mass shootings like this and the one at Newton in 2012 are only a small part of our gun violence issue. The everyday gun violence that takes place in cities all across the United States claims the lives of thousands every single year. According to The Guardian, 33,500 civilians die each year because of gun brutality- “that’s about 1 life every 15 minutes” (Beckett). Between the years of 1999 and 2013, there were 464,003 gun deaths in the U.S, about 58% of them were suicides 37% were homicides. (ProCon.org) Gun violence and the consequences of that violence, have become a real and dangerous problem in the U.S , why else would the CDC list the United States as having the highest rate of gun violence out of all developed countries today? (Gale Opposing Viewpoints) This issue is not just attributable to a single factor, there are several that play an important part in why gun violence is such an issue in the U.S, namely laws and poverty; and in these causes we can also find solutions.

School shootings, gang violence, drive by shootings, murder, and thousands of acts of violence are committed every day. Members of our society criticize their own people for this violence while they continue to sit back and do nothing about it. These acts of violence have many contributing factors. Violence in our country today is escalating because we don't control the distribution of the guns sold. There are not enough restrictions on guns sold legally. The illegal purchase of guns through the black market is out of control. There is not enough education on the usage and storage of guns.

As far as overall gun violence is concerned, according to the FBI's 1998 Uniform Crime Reports, the overall violent crime rate in the US decreased about 7%. Robbery alone declined by 11%, the lowest since 1969. In addition, murder dropped by 7%, the lowest since 1967. More significantly, despite the fact the number of firearms and handguns owned by individual Americans continued to increase from 1997-1998, the FBI also reported the rate of firearms used to commit murder and robberies decreased in 1998. (1998 Uniform Crime Reports). These facts conclusively prove that firearms owned by peaceable citizens do not lead to increased murder or violent crime rates. In fact, they demonstrate that armed citizens lead to reduced rates of violent crime. When the gun is in the hands of a well-rounded person, it is no more of a weapon than your every day curling iron.

The United States’ homicide rate (5.9 deaths per 100,000 people as of 2005) is higher when compared to other countries: Sweden with 1.3, Canada with 1.5, and Australia with 1.3. To go along with these rates, America has a higher gun ownership with 39% when compared to Canada with 29.1%, Australia with 19.4% and Sweden with 15.1%. Many argue that these statistics prove the effectiveness of gun control. Fewer amount of guns equals less crime.

Every year in the united states more than 30,000 people die from gun violence. Researchers say that gun violence is getting out of

According to the 2010 study there were 31,672 fatalities due to firearms. The following year the number went up to 32,163. Homicides that are a result from guns are relatively high in the States and they take more than eleven thousand lives a year. According to Vision for Humanity, an initiative for the Economics and Peace, the United States is ranked 99 out of 162 countries in the 2013 global peace index, homicide rates and violent crimes are among the various criteria used to determine the ranking (Vision of Humanity). Mass shootings at work places, schools, shopping malls and places of worship are happening in an alarming frequency. While the Newtown shooting is one of the horrific ones, it certainly isn’t the only one that happened in the last two years alone. There were several other mass shootings that took the lives of many all across America. While there are other significant problems in America that need our attention, in my opinion, increasing rate of Gun violence is the most significant problem in American that needs to be addressed.

Gun violence has been around for centuries and there have been many mass shootings, homicides and suicides. There is always the argument on “do guns kill people” or “do people kill people”? What people really need to be looking at is the problem which is people stocking up on guns and not knowing how to properly handle them and all the mass shootings that are taking place. As a country, people need to be coming up with solutions instead of doing nothing.