In America, there is a public health epidemic caused by gun violence. 

Beyond the major shootings that have the country’s attention, it goes deeper. Every day, suicides, accidental shootings, and interpersonal disputes that become deadly because of easy access to guns claim the lives of people in communities all throughout the nation. 

In this nation, gun violence claims the lives of 35,000 individuals on average annually—96 each day. 

Two assailants assaulted a backyard party in Wilkinsburg, a suburb of Pittsburgh, killing five people and wounding three more. According to MassShootingTracker.org, the attack was the 62nd mass shooting of 2016 and the attackers are still at large. 

Following that attack, nine further mass shootings occurred across the US in only one week, resulting in the deaths of six more people and the injuries of 35 more. 

After the attacks in San Bernardino in December 2015 and the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston in June 2015, the issue of gun control dominated the early Democratic debates. 

But the Republicans on the other side of the aisle refused to acknowledge that any gun control regulations would have made a difference. They typically avoid discussing gun control and insist that increasing gun ownership is the greatest approach to lower gun fatalities in the US. 

Apart from highlighting the fundamental folly of trying to minimize gun deaths by arming more people, it has also proven to be incredibly challenging to demonstrate the effectiveness of gun control measures. Perhaps more crucially, it’s been exceedingly challenging to determine which gun control measures are genuinely successful in reducing gun fatalities. The Dickey Amendment, which the Republican Congress passed in 1996, is largely to blame for this. 

There was no ambiguity in the Dickey Amendment when it said that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate for or promote gun control.” 

Former Congressman Jay Dickey said to The Huffington Post after the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College last year: “I wish we had started the right research and kept it going all this time. I regret my actions. 

Dickey’s regrets over the amendment are to be applauded, but they don’t change the fact that we’ve lost 20 years of research on gun violence because to the unbridled greed of weapons manufacturers and the NRA’s ability to purchase lawmakers like Dickey. 

t is possible to minimize gun deaths by adopting reasonable gun control legislation, something the NRA and the Republican shills for the gun lobby in Congress really don’t want you to know. 

Researchers from the Boston University Medical Center recently discovered that if three gun restrictions that are already in place at the state level in several states were simply expanded nationally, we might actually reduce gun deaths by more than 80%. 

Lead author Bindu Kalesan claims that the study, which was just published in the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet, is the first to evaluate a wide range of gun legislation as well as other pertinent state-level data. 

A cross-sectional state-level dataset of firearm-related mortality was created by an international team of legal and public health specialists between 2008 and 2010. The team tallied the number of homicides involving firearms in each state in 2010, gathered data on the 25 state gun control legislation that took effect in 2009, as well as state-specific data on the prevalence of firearm ownership, non-firearm homicide rates, and unemployment rates for all 50 states. 

The relationship between those guns legislation and gun-related homicides, suicides, and overall mortality was then dissected using a statistical model. 

In fact, an increase in gun deaths was linked to nine of the 25 regulations. This is due to the so-called “Stand Your Ground” legislation, which George Zimmerman invoked to justifiably shoot and kill Trayvon Martin, then 17 years old, back in 2012. And nobody really should be surprised by that because it is legal for civilians to “shoot first, ask questions later.” 

Of the 25 legislation, nine others were, to varied degrees, linked to fewer gun deaths, while seven others had no discernible effect. 

The key finding of this study, however, is that if all three regulations were to be adopted, they might prevent more than 80% of gun deaths, potentially lowering the rate from 10.1 per 100,000 people in 2010 to just 0.16 per 100,000. 

The study found that regulations requiring ballistic imprinting or microstamping for firearm identification might cut the likelihood of fatal shootings by 84 percent! 

When all gun purchases are subject to background checks, the likelihood of gun deaths might be reduced by 61 percent nationwide and by 82 percent the first time someone attempts to purchase ammunition. 

If those figures are correct, swift nationwide adoption of those three pieces of legislation might prevent tens of thousands of deaths this year alone. 

Republicans are the only political party in the developed world whose elected representatives reject climate change despite the unanimous opinion of all respectable scientists, so we know that they actually oppose science. But just because some Republicans conveniently don’t “believe” in scientific results that might harm the profit lines of GOP donors and lobbyists doesn’t mean that reality changes or disappears. 

If Republicans are really about being “pro-life,” they must aggressively sever ties with the NRA contributors who make money off of murder and other violent crimes. They should stop paying attention to the wealthy donors who support their campaigns and start paying attention to our experts, who state that gun violence is a public health pandemic, as well as the 80% of Americans who support tougher gun control laws. 

The research is fairly clear on this, and we now have the chance to save the lives of thousands of Americans. Let’s not blow this opportunity. 

Inform your elected officials that you support sensible gun laws.