Should There Be More Control on Guns?

This research topic will be on gun control. The gun control debate starts from the abundance of gun massacres and gun violence getting more and more popular and relevant. The requirements on getting a gun are strict, for example if someone has a mental illness, criminal record, vets who got dishonorably discharged from the military, or have a flight restriction can’t purchase or own a gun legally. There’s a background check on anyone wanting to buy a gun in the United States and some states even require a fingerprint to be taken to own a gun. The United States is ranked 31st in the world in gun violence even though it has one of the least strict gun control of any country. Since the beginning of the country has gun control been such a big topic because of all the mass shootings that have been happening.

The economic lenses of the topic of gun control take in part the companies who sells the guns, the makers of the guns, and the accessory maker of the guns. In 2012 there was a total of 8,578,610 million firearms manufactured in the United States and in 2013 that number skyrocketed to 10.9 million. The firearm industry has more than 300,000 jobs and more than $15 billion dollars in wages and $51.3 Billion in direct and indirect economic activity in the United States The top economic output per sates number 1 is Texas with $3.8 billion in the year of 2016. Gun industries employ twice as many employers then GM. Firearms and ammunition for hunting and shooting sports rose up to $6 billion which is comparable to companies like Hersey the chocolate maker. In terms of employment the firearm industry is in the top 25 ahead of GM. ATF found out that in employers in the firearms industries 5,441 were firearm makers, 1,895 manufacturers in ammunition, around 45,000 in dealers, 811 importers, and 59,227 in collectors. The amount of guns being bought and sold are rising at a fast pace and is now reaching all time highs in areas like guns in households, guns sold, guns manufactured in the United States, and the more and more popular it gets the more and more people are going to get jobs, the better the United States stock gets, and the better the United States economy gets and this is why guns shouldn’t be banned from an economic stand point.

To start, the employment rate of the United States has been rising and so is the gun industries employment rate. In 2017 there are a reported 310,908 job across the United States that deals with firearms which is higher then GM which in 2017 has only a reported 180,000 and higher then Disney. The number of new employers within the firearms industry has raise by 91,000 new jobs in 5 years. With the rise in employees across all firearm companies the economic impact of firearm industries is $51.4 billion dollars and it generates $6.7 billion dollars in total taxes. There are 690 firearm businesses in the United States, and the industry employment is at 43,244 in 2018. The average salary of a gun industry worker is around $140,000 a year. The United States leads in per capita civilian gun ownership with about 89 guns pers 100 American people.

Secondly, the amount of money firearm industries is making is growing and growing. The economic impact of firearms and the ammunition industries in the U.S in 2018 is $51,408,648,000 billion. Within the states the biggest economic impact comes from Texas which brought in $3,828,028,200 in total revenue and the lowest economic impact comes from Delaware at $3,768,600 from a 2017 report by the NSSF (National Shooting Sports Foundation). California comes in close 2nd to the biggest state impact on the economic impact at $3,635,779,700 even though it has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States.

The rise of the firearm economy is getting higher and higher as the years go on. In the past 8 years there has been a rise of 10 million background checks when purchasing a firearm, but that number is steadily going down due to more coverage on mass shootings in the past 3 years. and since 2008 the growth of the economic impact of the United States has gone up 169%. With 45% of family homes having a firearm and 3% of those own more than 25 firearms the new guns coming out along with the cheaper prices on old guns and more accessibility on buying guns through the internet the gun market and gun ownership rates will rise. In 2006 there were 3.6 million firearms manufactured in the United States, but in 2016 alone there has been 10.6 million firearms produced with 85% being pistols and rifles and a newer firearm company that has its one and only plant in Daytona Beach named Sccy made 160,676 pistols in 2016 which out of all the firearm companies there ranked 5th behind big companies like Sig Sauer, Glock, Kimber, and Strum, Ruger & company in pistols manufactured.

Gun violence and gun control can have a big impact on the economy. In the emergency room and inpatient charges cost around $2.8 billion a year if you also account for the lost wages the number rises to $45 billion a year. With that type of cost something might have to be done to stop the amount of money it cost to help patients, but with that in mind the cost of gun control is also a factor that needs to be investigated. One example comes from Colorado and Washington where advocates and lawmakers spent million of dollars to past a law that made it where there had to be a background check on all gun sales, and since then researches found out the law did nothing to help gun violence because most likely citizens just didn’t comply to the new law and there was a lack of enforcement on the law. During Obama’s presidency Obama made a proposal that cost around $4.5 billion dollars in the spending fees in a total package of 13 different laws spending to limit guns and gun violence but that spending never came into effect.

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