I've been looking at America's gun violence crisis for some time now, gathering essential information with respect to gun deaths, crime rates, where they are happening and how American society reacts to it. Many people of different social/economic backgrounds have weighed in their opinions on both sides of the aisle; whether if it's gun-control or pro-gun groups. But, unfortunately, neither side can really offer a permanent solution to at best keep America's gun violence problem at reasonable rates on a first-world level. What actually happens is that pro-gun legislation and its unregulated gun-culture helps to exacerbate the problem by encouraging large gun sales nationwide which can never solve our crime/gun violence problems at all; leaving only manufacturer and gun-lobbies to benefit from this trend. And the gun-control side, who believe assault-weapons ban, buy-back programs, and extensive background checks which result in a massive change to our gun-violence stats; are also wrong in their conclusions, simply because their proposals only patch the problem but not "cure" this vicious cycle of gun violence.
Both sides are wrong on this, because they are treating this as an independent issue, we can't get away with that because the reason America sought to purchase 330M privately-owned firearms, the reason we incarcerate 2M prisoners in our country, the reason our once economic urban epicenters (Chicago, Detroit, Flint, Philadelphia, Cleveland, etc.) have all fallen into economic decay, are all connected with our crumbling political, economic, and social infrastructure.
Much of our economy relied heavily during the Industrial Revolution on the manufacturing sector, where thousands of workers focused on steel, car manufacturing, coal mining, construction, gas, and oil refineries. It also included commercial markets where millions of Americans had jobs in sales, consumer goods, and other lucrative markets. The era of trust-busting, unions, child-labor laws, women's suffrage all helped in part to improve the American economy and ultimately bridge the gap between the rich and poor. But after these "progressive" periods, something changed...
Over time, there were other developments taking place between the government and the wealthy class, essentially stepping in and undoing all benefits of the "progressive period" of the early 20th century. And soon enough, began a trend of moving the manufacturing sector out of America, re-writing the federal tax code to benefit blue-chip companies, establishing tax-havens overseas (ex:Bermuda) which avoid tax-evasion laws altogether. There has been rise in costs due to health-care treatment, health-care insurance policies, pharmaceutical-manufacturers making obscene profits from their products, and out-of-control military budget which makes huge profits from guns, tanks, planes, and ships, but "somehow" just never seemed to portion enough of that money to look after our soldiers and veterans after combat operations have ceased...
With so much money going into the capitalist-industrial complex, and so little going into starved American communities and cities, it should come as no surprise as to what happens next. Millions become jobless, crime rates go up, communities are broken, people purchase more and more guns for protection, and America continues to limp on holding onto one crutch with one hand and wagging our finger at other nations with the other "policing the world"...
Nothing will seriously happen with regards to pro-gun legislation or pro-gun laws because our gun violence is an after effect of America's crumbling and crippling economy. If this is not addressed in the proper context, we will only find so many of our loved ones left to perish in misery and death... whether if it happens to be under the gun or not...
