Abstract
This paper researches articles that reports on gun control in the United States. Gun control has been a serious topic in America for decades due to innocent students dying from school shootings, pedestrians being murdered in mass shootings, and African-Americans being slayed by our police officers. According to ProCon.org (2016), "The United States has 88.8 guns per 100 people, or about 270,000,000 guns, which is the highest total and per capita number in the world." With a ratio like that gun violence is only inevitable. Rather it being positive or negative, businesses who sell guns in the United States have a direct impact on gun control and gun violence. This research paper will examine what roles businesses can play in boosting gun control.
How American Businesses Plan to Take a Stand on Gun Control
According to everytownreaserch.org (2018), in the United States today gun violence kills 96 people a day. For every one person that's killed, two people are injured from gun violence. There's constant discussion about whether to increase or decrease gun control. While American citizens are still being gunned down due to a lack of urgency to improve gun control. I feel as if American business can and should play a major role in maximizing gun control.
Gun Control
In the Article from Pro-Con.org (2016), "America's pervasive gun culture stems in part from the Second Amendment, which states: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."" Meaning a civilian of the United States can arm themselves with firearms. The U.S. federal law states that "It is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison for the following people to receive, possess, or transport any firearm or ammunition: someone convicted of or under indictment for a felony punishable by more than one year in prison, someone convicted of a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years in prison, a fugitive from justice, an unlawful user of any controlled substance, someone who has been ruled as mentally defective or has been committed to any mental institution, an illegal alien, someone dishonorably discharged from the military, someone who has renounced his or her U.S. citizenship, someone subject to certain restraining orders, or someone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor."
"It is illegal for any federally licensed firearms business to sell or transfer any firearm without first conducting a background check to see if the buyer/recipient falls into any of the prohibited categories listed above." Even though it isn't illegal for a gun to be privately sold or traded to a person without conducting a background check. We arm our police officers with guns after only going through basic training, even though our police officers have shot and killed 370 people in 2018, with 215 of those people not fleeing the scene. Meaning not everyone deserves a gun just because they meet the rules and regulations.
The Role American Businesses Play in Maximizing Gun Control
After all these rules and regulations American citizens are still being killed in high numbers, because they aren't enough. We need to efficiently improve our gun regulations while still abiding by the second amendment. In a weforum.org (2018) article, it talks about businesses toughening its position on firearm control due to "another American mass shooting, this time at a high school in Florida."
According to Stephanie Thomson, most "Americans" wants to strengthen regulations "on who can buy guns, against a backdrop of at least 1,607 mass shootings since 2012." Regardless, in a country where the benefit to guarantee a gun is a standard for significant administrative parcels, there has been nonattendance of order to restrict access to compelling weapons. Different organizations have gone significantly further, setting up strategies that the legislature has considered yet neglected to execute. Dick's sporting goods changed their policy "raising the minimum age for gun and ammunition buyers to 21 and will no longer sell military-style weapons." The CEO of Dick's Edward W. Stack, made an announcement on twitter saying, ""Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their loved ones. But thoughts and prayers are not enough," Edward W Stack, the company's CEO, said on Twitter. "We recognize and appreciate that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are law-abiding citizens. But we have to help solve the problem that's in front of us." Walmart has also made the same policy change.
Another way American businesses can take boosting gun control one step further is by taking some advice from Andrew Ross Sorkin. Stephanie Thomson says, Sorkin "called on titans of the finance industry to stop doing business with gun sellers, following the lead of PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay", in a weforums.org (2018) article. In a nytimes.org (2018) article Sarkin makes a vital point about Visa, Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America. If Visa and Mastercard simply changed its conditions to stop doing business with dealers that distribute "assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster." Sorkin feels that "If Mastercard were to do the same, assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system." Recently in February, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America took it upon themselves to "ban the purchase completely legal product" bitcoin according to the nytimes.org (2018) article. Meaning you can't buy the legal product bitcoin but you can purchase assault rifles like the ones used in mass shootings.
The Results of American Businesses Maximizing Gun Control. In result of American businesses boosting gun control major things will start to happen. For example, Andrew Ross Sorkin, made the claim that if Visa and MasterCard made a few changes assault weapons wouldn't even be sold in firearm stores in America due to credit distributors cutting off the gun stores line of credit. Some major American corporations are somewhat afraid to speak out and change policies because they feel the NRA will have a negative backlash and could negatively impact the franchise by ways of "boycotts that could affect their bottom line, but also actions that could imperil the safety of their employees," according to the nytimes.org (2018) article. Those issues could easily be solved with communication letting NRA members know that they aren't against guns, they just want to make a change that can positively affect lives in the future.
Conclusions
There are numerous pros and cons to why we should increase or decrease gun control. Even though increasing gun control doesn't necessarily mean fewer deaths from firearms, businesses should still do what they can to save American lives. More than likely there will be negative backlash from organizations like the NRA, but once they see the positive results from businesses doing things like raising the legal buying age of assault rifles to 21, they will support it. Also, they must understand American business taking gun control matters into their own hands doesn't mean that business owners are against guns and the second amendment. They are only being natural humanitarians and putting the lives of American citizens before objects of metal and wood that can end lives in seconds.