I believe the majority of our population agrees on many important points regarding our gun laws. A survey from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions uncovered many proposed laws that Americans generally agree on. One of them is an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO), also known as a “red flag” law. This is a civil order with due process protections that temporarily restricts firearm access for an individual who is behaving dangerously or presents a high risk of harm to self or others. Depending on a state’s ERPO law, different people in connection to the individual may request the court for the restriction of a firearm.

Seventy-six to seventy-seven percent of Americans support allowing family members (77 percent), licensed health care clinicians (77 percent), and police (76 percent) to ask the court to temporarily remove guns from a relative who is at risk of harming themselves or others. Another law that many people agree with is one to prevent intimate partner homicides. Firearms are used in over half of them, and 82 percent of Americans also support prohibiting a person (alleged abuser) subject to a temporary domestic violence protection order from having a gun for the duration of the order.

Because of our ever-growing political divide, I believe it is imperative to show people that we aren’t as different as we may believe. Showing that non-gun owners, gun owners, Democrats and Republicans are all able to find a common interest in a seemingly controversial topic will help bridge the political gap and encourage people to have meaningful conversations.

A widely debated law with much information spread about it is the right-to-carry (RTC) laws, state regulations governing the public possession of firearms, either openly or concealed. Research on RTC laws by Stanford University has shown that these laws are associated with significant increases in violent crime. Uniform Crime Reports data from 1979 to 2014 has been assessed to show that, on average, the 33 states that adopted RTC laws over this period experienced violent crime rates that are roughly 14 percent higher after 10 years than if they had not adopted these laws. This is a very important piece of information since all arguments surrounding RTC laws hinge upon it.

This became common knowledge nine years ago, but it has not become a major part of the discussion around gun laws. The only difference between an uninformed person who believes that RTC laws are unsafe, and an uninformed person who believes that RTC laws are safe, is that one would be lucky enough to guess correctly. They both would know the same thing—nothing—and will pick based on other factors.

One thing that many people do know is that America has much more gun violence than other countries. Now, why is America so prominent for gun violence compared to other countries? The main difference in regulations is that other countries—including Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and the UK—require universal background checks and valid reasons for wanting a gun to receive a license, with self-defense excluded as a legally acceptable reason. While gun violence does exist in these countries, the overall rates are substantially higher in the United States.

In short, I believe that mostly unknown facts like these should become more widely known. The more informed our population is, the better, safer and smarter will be the choices our country makes.

Taline Grubb

The writer is a 10th grade student at Newton North High School.