If elected, Donald Trump, the 2024 election republican nominee, will heavily increase gun violence and homicide in the US. Trump plans to diminish any gun control policies put in place by President Biden and loosen life-saving restrictions. While Trump will increase armed violence in the United States, Kamala Harris, the democratic nominee, is working to make U.S. citizens safer from shooters.
During Trump’s first presidential term, he did little to nothing to decrease gun violence in the United States and even rolled back protections that were already in place. According to U.S. News, at the National Rifle Association (NRA) Great American Outdoor Show, Trump stated, “There was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.” Trump not only did nothing to decrease civilian gun violence, but he also knocked down protections. According to The Trace, during his presidency, Donald Trump took down Obama’s gun policies, including one that made it difficult for people with mental illness to buy a gun.
Kamala Harris has a history of improving gun laws and regulations. When Harris served as California’s attorney general, she did multiple things to implement and increase the effect of Red Flag laws. Red Flag laws allow government forces to remove a gun from a person if they are a threat to themselves or others. She did this by implementing the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center and securing California’s spot as the third state to implement Red Flag laws. Kamala was also the head of the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in 2023. In addition to the changes Kamala has made in the past, she wants to continue improving American citizens’ safety. According to The 19th, Harris wants to create the “freedom to live safe from gun violence,” a dream many Americans have.
Donald Trump has many presidential objectives, including the ideas found in the conservative 2025 Plan. In the 2025 Plan, it states that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will be moved to the Treasury Department, which will completely underfund and under-privilege the organization, making it more difficult to pass and enforce gun regulations. Trump plans to expand concealed carry rights and make it easier to bring a firearm across state borders. Trump also wants to classify gun retail stores as “essential services,” even though there is nothing essential about them.
Some believe that gun control does not work and does not limit gun violence in the US. The NRA states that “Gun control laws only affect law-abiding people who go through legal avenues to obtain firearms.” They claim that criminals only gain firearms through illegal means, which on the surface, is true. Only about 10.1% of criminals get their firearms from a retail source. However, gun control limits the overall regulation of guns. If a criminal gains a gun through buying it from an underground sale, gun control and background checks would prevent the illegal seller from purchasing the gun in the first place.
Furthermore, the NRA exclaims that “cities with some of the most stringent gun laws, like New York and Chicago, suffer from some of the highest violent crime rates.” Though places with high gun control, like New York and Chicago, have high murder and gun violence statistics, it is not tied to gun control itself. New York and Chicago are large, high-density cities, so their crime levels are obviously more than a rural country town.
There is an ongoing debate about gun regulation, and whether it interferes with American freedom. Many Americans, including Donald Trump, believe that the right to carry a gun should be protected. Though this may be true, many people forget that uncontrolled gun ownership infringes other’s freedom. The freedom to go to school and not have to worry about being shot, the freedom to walk around a city without worrying, and the freedom to go to a music festival without fear in the back of your mind. The U.S. Constitution is all about American freedom, but you must remember that unregulated guns affect other American citizens, restricting overall freedom in our country.
If the people of America want to live their lives without a continual fear of violence, if students want to go to school without the fear of being shot, vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Unlike Donald Trump, she will work to prevent gun violence and protect our freedoms.