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Jonah Mendoza

Professor Parker

ENGL-1302

7 August 2019

A Solution to Gun Violence in the US

Gun violence has become a set of tragic events that occurs regularly. Recently, there was

a mass shooting at a local Walmart in El Paso, Texas that had 22 people killed and dozens of

people injured. Sometime after the El Paso shootings, 9 people were found dead and 27 were

injured by a gunman in Dayton, Ohio. In response to these deadly shootings, the US President,

Donald Trump says that the acts of violence must be stopped including “gruesome and grisly

video games that are now commonplace.” (Draper, 6-7) Many officials in the US government

including Trump have claimed that violent video games have been the cause of gun violence in

the nation because they believe that it encourages young people to do aggressive actions.

However, the US Supreme Court has stated before that there was no clear evidence nor

connection between the shootings and video games. Instead of putting the blame on a form of

entertainment that doesn’t always cause harm within an individual’s mindset, it would be better

for the nation to start making changes to the gun policies by limiting the possession of firearms.

The reason that gun laws should be stricter in the US is because it would be dangerous to

allow suspicious people to own weapons. Simply put, it would be wise to not allow people to

own guns unless they follow some certain conditions so that firearms won’t be in the hands of a

future suspect of another shooting. For example, Japan and South Korea are known for having a

small number of shootings meaning that it is rare to have gun violence occur in both nations.
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While both countries have managed to have a minimal amount of gun deaths, the cause of this

gun control roots from their history. Japan decided to limit gun control for the sake of security

after World War II and South Korea made strict gun regulations by confiscations after going

through 3 decades of gun violence. With the debate of gun violence in the US, articles

commended South Korea as a role model of gun regulation which can be a good place to visit if

citizens want to avoid anything related to weapons. Using video games as the blame for gun

violence has become a controversial reason for many US citizens and the gaming community

especially for a few years now. Following the president’s reasoning would not only bring harm

to the gaming industry dramatically, but it will also have no results or benefits if video games

were to be removed for the sake of gun regulation.

Using Japan as an example again, Japan’s gun regulation is allowing the citizen to own

an armed weapon by attending a class, pass a written test, and have a minimum of 95% accuracy

in the shooting-range test. When it comes to gun regulation, removing weapons from citizens

completely except for police officers can possibly cause an outrage due to the unfairness of

gaining possession of guns. The best method to make things fair for everyone is to have citizens

follow through a set of procedures in order to legally own a weapon which is like how Japan

settled their gun policies. This is to prevent any young citizens to have access to guns easily and

use it for threatening purposes.

In order to lessen the number of gun deaths in the US, the gun laws must be changed by

letting citizens legally own weapons under certain conditions. Due to the recent shootings in El

Paso and Dayton, government officials and President Trump blames video games for these

events which is absurd to others.

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Works Cited

Romano, Aja. “Millions of Gamers Manage Not to Shoot People. #VideoGamesAreNotToBlame

Is for Them.” Vox, Vox, 6 Aug. 2019, www.vox.com/culture/2019/8/6/20757050/video-games-

do-not-cause-gun-violence-meme.

Draper, Kevin. “Politicians Again Blame Video Games for Shootings, Despite Evidence.” The

New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent-video-games-studies.html.

Ferguson, Christopher J. “Analysis: Why It's Time to Stop Blaming Video Games for Real-

World Violence.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 5 Aug. 2019,

www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-why-its-time-to-stop-blaming-video-games-for-real-

world-violence.

“Mass Shootings Devastate El Paso and Dayton. Here's What We Know.” PBS, Public

Broadcasting Service, 4 Aug. 2019, www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/mass-shootings-devastate-el-

paso-and-dayton-heres-what-we-know.

Weller, Chris. “Japan Has Almost Completely Eliminated Gun Deaths - Here's How.” Business

Insider, Business Insider, 15 Feb. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-how-japan-has-

almost-completely-eliminated-gun-deaths-2017-10.

“How South Korea Got Rid of Its Gun Problem: Ké Radar.” KOREA EXPOSÉ, 28 Feb. 2018,

www.koreaexpose.com/how-south-korea-got-rid-gun-problem/.