The Second Amendment Has Placed the U.S. Toward the Head of the Pack of Nations With Gun-Related Deaths

Scotland, UK

At Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, near Stirling, Scotland, on March 13, 1996, a 43-year-old man entered with four legally purchased handguns and sprayed the school with bullets. By the time he ended his spree, 16 young students and one teacher lay dead with an additional 15 others injured before he killed himself. This massacre remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.

In the aftermath, the public and their government representatives discussed ways to prevent similar acts of violence from happening all across the United Kingdom. People circulated petitions, known as the Snowdrop Petition, for a ban on private ownership of handguns. Governmental officials led an official inquiry, which in 1996 produced the Cullen Report led by Lord Cullen.

These actions led to legislation of two new Firearms Acts, which prohibited the private ownership of most types of handguns in Great Britain. The national government instituted a firearms buyback program, which provided appropriate compensation to licensed owners.

As recommended by the Cullen Report, the government introduced stricter regulations on handgun ownership while considering whether to permanently ban all private ownership, though gun club ownership would remain.

The Report also recommended several changes in school security procedures and enhanced background checks on all adults working with young people under the age of 18 since the perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre had served as a Scout master.

The government created a six-member Gun Control Network, which was supported by some of the parents of the victims of the Dunblane and Hungerford massacres. The latter occurred in Wiltshire and Berkshire, UK, and ended in the death of 16 people, including an unarmed police officer and the mother of the shooter, a 27-year-old man, before he killed himself.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister John Major responded by introducing the Firearms (Amendment) Act in 1997 banning all cartridge ammunition handguns, in England, Scotland, and Wales except the .22 calibre rimfire.

After the United Kingdom’s general election in 1997, the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, however, introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, which banned the remaining .22 cartridge handguns as well.

The only non-banned legal firearms included muzzle-loading and historic handguns and some sporting handguns (e.g. “Long-Arms”) and long-barreled handguns that fall outside the minimum barrel and overall length dimensions in the Firearms Act 1968, as amended.

This handgun ban did not apply to Northern Ireland where it remains legal for citizens to own handguns for target shooting (if they hold a firearms license) and, for self-defense, if the owner has been granted a personal protection weapon permit.

Though the UK experienced an initial surge in firearms deaths and injuries immediately following the passage of tightened controls, reports have shown a significant decline in gun-related violence in later years.

Australia

Before and up to 1996, Australia had relatively high rates of gun-related murder, but an incident at Port Arthur, Tasmania, April 28, 1996, was the proverbial straw that broke the poor camel’s back. On that date, a man opened fire on a group of tourists killing 35 and wounding another 23. The massacre was the worst mass murder in Australia’s history.

Taking decisive action, newly-elected conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, negotiated a bipartisan deal between the national, state, and local governments in enacting comprehensive gun safety measures, which included a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, and laws prohibiting private firearms sales, mandatory registration by owners of all weapons, and the requirement that all potential buyers of guns at the time of purchase give a “genuine reason” other than general or overarching self-defense without documentation of necessity.

By 1996, polls showed overwhelming public support of approximately 90% for the new measures. And though firearms-related injuries and death have not totally come to an end, according to The Washington Post,homicides by firearms fell by 59% between 1995 and 2006 with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides, and a 65% reduction in gun-related suicides.

Other studies found significant drops in robberies involving firearms, and contrary to fears by some, there was no increase in the overall number of home invasions. In the decade preceding the Port Arthur massacre, Australia recorded 11 mass shootings. No mass shootings have occurred for over two decades after the measures went into effect.

United States

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where on December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old man murdered 20 children and 6 adult staff before committing suicide. The man murdered his mother at her home before heading to the school.

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida where on February 14, 2018 (Valentine’s Day), a 19-year-old man and former student at the school opened fire killing 17 people and injuring another 18. He was arrested after fleeing the scene.

Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas where on May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old man and former student at the school fatally shot 19 students and 2 teachers and injured 17 others, before the shooter was killed by law enforcement officers.

Annunciation Catholic Church and School, Minneapolis, Minnesota where on August 27, 2025 a shooter scattered bullets through the stained glass windows killing two young students aged 8 and 10 and injuring another 15 students and 3 adults before committing suicide.

In addition to these high-profile gun-related incidents in U.S. schools, the K-12 School Shooting Database, which tracks the number of school incidents since 1996 has reported:

• 2020: 116 incidents
• 2021: 257 incidents
• 2022: 308 incidents
• 2023: 350 incidents
• 2024: 337 incidents
• 2025: 150 incidents as of August 27

The ordinarily cool “no drama Obama” wiped away a tear and expressed his frustration over the easy accessibility of high-powered rifles following the devastating murder of 20 precious babies and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Following that tragedy, approximately 24 states extended people’s right to carry guns into public spaces such as bars, houses of worship, college campuses, and some businesses, and even into airports up to the TSA checkpoints.

The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in 1853, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” The point he was making was that individuals, institutions, and societies virtually never relinquish even a bit of power without challenge and conflict.

The mass murder by a fully-armed shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida seemed to have provoked a tipping point ushering in the next development in a continuing movement to promote firearms safety in the United States: direct action led by a new generation of justifiably frightened and angry passionate young people, many of whom have grown up since and during the tragic murders of students at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook Elementary School.

While the U.S. Congress passed a few small incremental changes in the nation’s gun laws, it pales when compared to the U.S. Congress’s brief federal ban on so-called assault weapons, The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, in September 1994. The ban, which also included barring high-capacity magazines, expired in September 2004 as required in its 10-year sunset provision. The measure has not been reauthorized by Congress.

The difference between the actions taken in the United Kingdom and Australia compared to the United States is that the former nations did not include the equivalent of a Second Amendment in their legal documents. Subsequently, the United States has a significantly higher overall rate of firearms deaths than any of our western peer nations and, in fact, of most of the nations around the world except for Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, and El Salvador.

A Pew Research Center 2024 poll found:

• A majority of Americans (61%) say it is too easy to legally obtain a gun in this country,
• About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) favor stricter gun laws,
• More than half of U.S. adults say an increase in the number of guns in the country is bad for society (the current rate is 120.5 guns per 100 people),
• About half of Americans (49%) see gun violence as a major problem,
• A majority of public K-12 teachers (59%) say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school, including 18% who are very or extremely worried.

But how many more Sandy Hook Elementary Schools, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High Schools, Robb Elementary Schools, Virginia Techs, Annunciation Catholic Schools, and so many others will it take for the vast majority of our people to act in demanding that our legislators en mass finally grow a spine and do the right thing by passing comprehensive and effective firearms safety reforms that will actually save lives?

I truly wish that our nation’s founders had not included the equivalent of the current Second Amendment permitting residents to “bear arms,” which has resulted in the United States running toward the head of the pack of nations with the highest firearms-related death rate in the world.

I have been, nonetheless, advocating for the overturning of the Second Amendment while knowing that it is impossible owing to the entrenchment of the gun culture in the United States.

In the art of diplomacy, the parties go into talks announcing their ultimate wants or goals. In their negotiations and using the process of compromise, if successful, they come out of the discussions with less than they had hoped for, but enough to at least give them some satisfaction that they leave with more than they had at the beginning.

Possibly if some people with political power advocate for the repeal of the Second Amendment as their want or goal, then maybe those who have remained steadfast in their hardened positions of maintaining the status quo might at least consider softening a bit by supporting:

• universal background checks,
• limiting the number of firearms any individual can own,
• limiting the number of bullets any firearm clip can hold,
• repealing “shoot first” or “stand your ground” laws.

Hey, one day if their spines maintain a semblance of stability, they might even support the reinstatement of The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act banning “assault weapons.”

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