I Am So Sick of the Violence

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The United States is the most violent nation in the world. It is heartbreaking. According to the BBC News on January 5, 2016 and CBS News on October 7, 2017: "Firearms were used to kill 13,286 people in the U.S. in 2015, excluding suicide. Approximately 1.4 million people have died from firearms in the U.S. between 1968 and 2011. This number includes all deaths resulting from a firearm, including suicides, homicides, and accidents. Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher. Although it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, the U.S. had 82 percent of all gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed with guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed with guns." As if it is not bad enough what we are doing in our own nation, we also export our gun violence. According to a Foreign Policy report in "Intelligencer" dated February 23, 2018, the gun violence in the US is a problem for the entire world: "According to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 73,684 firearms seized in Mexico and traced from 2009 to 2014 originated in the United States. Mexico is by no means the only destination for black-market American firearms. An investigation last year by RAND Europe and the University of Manchester found that nearly 60 percent of firearms listed for sale on the dark web were of U.S. origin. U.S. military-issue small arms, including M16 and M4 assault rifles as well as “grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, thermal sniper scopes and body armor,” are being sold via jihadist channels on the encrypted messaging app Telegram in a part of Syria controlled by Al Qaeda–affiliated militants." When is the United States going to get serious about the problem we have with weapons? When will we get reasonable gun laws, an assault weapon ban, universal background checks? When will we stop exporting these weapons to other countries, which can then use them against our own soldiers? When are we going to get smart?