Transcript of the presentation by Rick Verbraak about gun violence, 18-02-2020.

Hello, our group is talking about how to reduce violence, and I am talking about how
to reduce gun violence. Furthermore, our group is talking about sexual assault, psychological
violence and cyberbullying.
First, I wanted to compare the country that I live in, the Netherlands, with the USA,
which is clearly the country with the most gun violence. In the USA, about a hundred people
die a day due to gun violence, which makes 36.000 people a year, while in the Netherlands,
it is only 72 people a year, which is a big difference that is caused by the amount of guns that
they have. Because in the United states, there are 120 guns per 100 people, which means
that there are more guns in the country than people. In the Netherlands, it is only one gun
per 81 people, which is a very big difference. Also, from 2014 until 2017, there has been an
increase of sixteen percent in the amount of gun violence. While in the Netherlands, in
twenty years, it has decreased by almost fifty percent. And another fact is that about 82
percent of the gun deaths are from America. 82 percent of gun deaths of the entire world.
Why do we need change? We need change, because the evolution of guns has been
crazy over the past 250 years. When the constitution was written in 1791, these were the
guns that they had. These took about ten to twenty second to reload, so you could only have
a few shots every minute. And these are the guns that we have now. These are semi-
automatic or fully automatic and shoot very fast. So, it is probably time for a change.
My solution was changing the American constitution. You can do this by article five,
which states that if two thirds of both houses, which are the house of representatives and
the senate, agree that change is needed, the constitution can be changed. And I want to
repeal the second amendment, which is just deleting it completely. But the issues with that
are cultural problems, since guns are almost a culture in the United States. And a lot of
people own a gun and cling to their right from the second amendments, to defend
themselves with guns and their right to have a gun. So, that would be a big issue. Also,
political problems would be that there would be a lot of demonstration against it and that
people would say that you can’t change the constitution, while you actually can, by article
five. And this already has changed27 times in the past 250 years. And I think the biggest
problem right now, is president Trump, since he is very pro the second amendment and the
right to protect yourself with guns. But luckily, in 2020 we will be having new elections and
hopefully we will get a new president next year, which will change this.
I also wanted to look at the American opinion and I saw in an article from the
Washington post that 21 percent that reacted wanted to repeal the law, so actually just take
it. And it might not sound like a lot, but it is still about one fifth of the entire American
population. And 46 percent wants just change, like more restrictions or certain guns that
would be illegal. And that is almost the majority of the people. You can also see that the
democrats really want change.
I also wanted to look a bit more to the guns in the rest of the world. I found that only
three countries in the entire world have the right to bear arm in their constitution, those
being the USA, Mexica and Guatemala. From thos three, only the USA has no restriction on
that right. Even Mexico and Guatemala see like “this is very dangerous, and we need some
restrictions.” There were six other countries that had the right to bear arms, but they
repealed it. Because obviously, they saw what was wrong with it. In Europe, only 15,6
percent of the people own a gun. And I found out why they did have a gun. Only twelve
percent has it for protection. While in America, almost everyone has a gun to protect
themselves. While here, it is just not that many. Also, what a thing is about Europe, that is in
my opinion better than in America, that if something happens, we look at it and we talk
about how to control it. Because in 2015 and 2016 there were the terrorist attacks in
Brussels and Paris and immediate actions were taken, like there was a ban on semi-
automatic rifles and a maximum of bullets per round in certain guns. Also, I wanted to view
the difference in amount of guns that they have around the world. This is, as I mentioned, a
120 guns per 100 people, and the next is only about 38 or 39. So the USA is really where we
should tackle the issue.
So, I want to get back to my solution. I think that from the information that I found,
also from the article from the Washington Post, I don’t think we should repeal the law, but
just change it. Maybe ad some more restrictions about certain guns that cannot be there
anymore and how many guns you can have per person for example. So, I think the world is
changing, the guns are changing, so the laws should be changing too. Thank you for listening.