Gun Violence in United States - A Letter to the President

Running head: GUN VIOLENCE IN UNITED STATES
Gun Violence in United States
-A Letter to the president
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1GUN VIOLENCE IN UNITED STATES
Dear Sir,
The problem of gun violence in United States is an ever pressing issue that has caused
deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of people due to incidents of suicide or armed assault
or homicide. As of 2016, almost 11.96 people out of 100,000 people have died due to gun
violence (including, suicides, accidental death and homicide). Moreover, United States of
America has one of the highest rate of gun ownership (nearly 390 million people) per capita
and the highest number of gun related deaths (almost 33,594 people), compared to any other
developed country (bbc.com, 2019).
According to Webster (2015), the number of gun related homicides in United States in
six times than that of Canada and 16 times than that of Germany and the American Citizen
owns a total of nearly half of all the civilian owned guns in the world, even though population
makes up only 4.4% of the global population, which shows the disproportionately high
ownership of guns in United States. This high rate of gun ownership has been suggested to be
one of the key factors promoting and facilitating gun violence in United States (Masiakos &
Warshaw, 2018).
The relation between gun ownership and gun related deaths can be exhibited by the
higher prevalence of gun related deaths in states that have higher gun ownership. Studies by
Morain et al. (2019) showed that states such as Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Wyoming and Idaho
which as gun ownerships of 60 to 70% has higher incidence of gun related deaths compared
to states with less gun ownership such as New York, New Jersey or Delaware. Furthermore,
According to Siegel (2018), stricter gun policies and laws in Australia have significantly
helped to reduce gun violence in the country, helping the government to reduce the number of
gun ownerships by more than 20% and gun related deaths by more than 50%.