A Nation’s Choice Overdue: Why the United States Should Move to Take Out Civilian Firearms

I had written on this topic few times earlier already and this has to get better. In a recent school shooting in Minneapolis, an assailant, for unknown reasons, fired 116 shots with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol into a church full of children attending Mass. One handgun round was found jammed in the weapon—suggesting the shooter intended to fire even more. Where in the world will someone shoot 116 rounds on small, innocent children other than this 'greatest' land. Even the active military combat zones spare small kids. This is far worse than that. This is simply a cause for public embarrassment for every living adult on the land. Much worse, those responsible for putting the firearms into these bad players knowingly with the policies roam freely without any repercussions and consequences even after a number of incidents. There has to be executive action to unleash full reforms or set the nation along this path if there is any moral guilt and humanity left in this nation. Imagine the sound: bullet after bullet tearing through stained glass, pews, and the bodies of children who had just started their school year. Not even a third world country endures this stigma and stained conscience. I am posting a detailed account on this tragedy of guns and gun related violence in US and why we need to urgently fix this open crime and did nothing for decades.

There is a moral cost to tolerating mass death when we know how to prevent it. The United States endures a scale of gun violence unmatched among wealthy democracies: tens of thousands of lives lost every year, children’s deaths that could be avoided, and a civic life punctured by fear. This is not inevitable. It is the result of policy choices. If we measure the health of a society not only by its wealth but by how it shields the vulnerable, then the continued ubiquity of firearms in American civilian life is a stain on the nation’s conscience.

This article argues, with evidence and moral clarity, that the United States should pursue a phased, humane program to remove most firearms from civilian circulation — a ban on private ownership of assault weapons and high-capacity firearms and a structured buyback for existing guns — while preserving narrowly defined, transparent exceptions for professional uses. The goal is not to punish responsible owners but to reduce the lethality of everyday conflicts, prevent mass killings, and protect children, schools, and communities.

• The number of firearms in civilian hands in the United States dwarfs that of any other country. Estimates range from hundreds of millions; many industry and research trackers place the current civilian stock near 400–500 million firearms, meaning there are roughly as many guns as people in the country. This makes the U.S. by far the most heavily armed civilian population per capita in the world.

• The human toll is enormous and persistent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded about 46,700 gun-related deaths in 2023, a figure that includes homicides, suicides, accidental shootings, and undetermined firearm deaths. That is more than 120 deaths every day. Gun suicides form the largest share of that total; homicides and mass shootings add profound communal trauma.

• Public sentiment shows alarm: a majority of Americans say increases in the number of guns in the country are bad for society, and many support strong regulatory measures when framed as protecting children and communities. That indicates political space for bold action if the policy is framed humanely and practically.

The combination of vast availability and high death rates is not coincidental. International comparisons show that countries with far fewer guns in civilian circulation — and strict controls on access — also have dramatically lower rates of firearm deaths. This is not determinism but strong correlation backed by public-health research: fewer guns → fewer gun deaths.

Consider the recent shooting in Minneapolis at the Church of the Annunciation during a school Mass that killed children and wounded dozens. A single attacker, armed with multiple firearms, turned a sanctuary into a scene of lethal chaos. The episode is a grim illustration of a repeating pattern: where high-capacity firearms are easily accessible, single individuals can perpetrate mass harm in minutes. The human cost is not only the killed and wounded — it is the trauma borne by families, schools, and neighborhoods for years.

Incremental measures matter: background checks, extreme risk protection orders (“red flag” laws), safe-storage rules, mental-health investment, and community violence intervention all save lives and should be expanded immediately. But incrementalism alone has not delivered the scale of change required. The United States remains an outlier: policy patches have not produced a downward trajectory comparable to countries that moved further — for example, Australia’s post-Port Arthur reforms, where a combination of bans and buybacks substantially reduced mass shootings.

A carefully designed prohibition on civilian ownership of certain categories of weapons (assault-style rifles, high-capacity magazines, military-grade firearms) — phased in with compensation and supports — would produce three immediate public-health benefits:

1. Reduce lethality: Many interpersonal conflicts and impulsive acts result in death because a firearm is present. Take away the easiest, deadliest instrument and the probability that a violent confrontation ends fatally falls sharply.

2. Decrease mass-casualty potential: Mass shootings rely on weapons that allow rapid, repeated, high-capacity fire. Restricting these weapons makes such attacks harder and less lethal.

3. Lower firearm suicide fatality rates: Firearm suicide attempts have a far higher fatality rate than many other methods. Reducing access to firearms lowers the overall suicide mortality rate. 

Prohibition without transition would be politically and practically fraught. The humane approach has four pillars:

1. Generous federally funded buybacks. Offer fair market compensation (indexed to condition and rarity) and immediate no-questions-asked collection at many sites. Fund buybacks at scale: tens of billions will be necessary up front, but the societal returns — reduced medical costs, improved productivity, and lives saved — justify the investment.

2. Large amnesty windows and safe disposal. Provide easy surrender points and cover safe transportation. Work with state and local law enforcement, community groups, and faith organizations to run local drives.

3. Exemptions and strict licensing. Preserve access for clearly defined professional roles (active law enforcement, military personnel on duty, specialized museum/certified collectors under strict storage/transport rules). Create a transparent, rigorous licensing system for any limited civilian use with strong training, background checks, and psychological evaluation, renewed periodically.

4. Reinvestment in safety. Use buyback funds and savings from reduced medical/justice costs to expand mental-health services, violence intervention programs, school safety improvements that avoid militarization, and economic development in communities hit hardest by violence.

This combination eases the political transition and ensures that responsible owners are treated fairly while reducing lethal capacity at a societal scale.

The Second Amendment and judicial precedent are real constraints. The correct legal strategy is twofold: design laws that are clearly tailored to public safety (narrowly defined prohibition on military-style and high-capacity weapons, not blanket confiscation of ordinary hunting shotguns), and pursue robust public-health arguments that courts recognize as legitimate government interests. States and localities can pilot programs and provide models. Public opinion — especially when framed around children, families, and community health — shows openings for bipartisan coalitions that favor practical, compensatory approaches. 

The immediate fiscal cost of a large buyback and enforcement is high. But the economic losses from gun violence — emergency medical care, long-term disability, law-enforcement response, lost productivity, and diminished property values — are enormous and recurring. Investing in prevention reduces those recurring costs and avoids the immeasurable human suffering that follows every mass shooting and every household tragedy.

Beyond numbers and policy, there is a moral dimension. A civilized polity is judged by how it protects its children and limits instruments that make interpersonal violence spectacularly deadly. Allowing near-universal access to military-grade firearms while millions live in fear, and while children practice lockdown drills, erodes civic trust and corrodes institutions of care. Removing the instruments of mass killing is not an assault on values — it is an affirmation that a society values life above the symbolic possession of tools designed for war.

The question before America is this: do we accept a high annual death toll as the price of a diffuse right to firearms, or do we choose a safer, more civilized social contract that limits those weapons’ civilian availability? A phased ban on the most lethal categories of firearms, combined with a generous buyback, strong licensing of exceptions, and reinvestment in violence prevention, is practical, constitutional, and morally urgent.

The Minneapolis shooting and too many tragedies like it show the human stakes. We can choose to reduce the number of guns in circulation dramatically — not to punish responsible people, but to protect the vulnerable, reduce suicides and homicides, and restore a sense of communal safety. That is not the weak answer; it is the brave one. A nation that chooses life, with care and justice for those affected, will be stronger, healthier, and truer to its highest ideals.