This is the first in a series of articles in which I am speaking with people from several countries where gun laws are more restrictive. I wanted to explore how they felt living in their countries.
This story is about China. With a population of approximately 1.4 billion, China has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world. As a result, it has (at 49.7 million) the third lowest number of guns in the world. I interviewed Yang, a Chinese citizen who lives in Shanghai. She is a 30 year old Marketing Professional. She told me her story:
The US mass shootings have been in the news clips all over the world Chinese media in the past week. It’s a big topic in China as much as it is in the US
We have totally opposite laws. There is no sense of guns, let alone gun control, in the Chinese civilian’s mind, meaning that in China, almost no one is worried about being shot by accident or deliberately. Some of us may be worried about being stabbed by gangsters in some inner provinces which are notorious for their gangster culture, but definitely not by guns like in the US
I lived in Boston for 6 years as an undergraduate and graduate student. Among the many things which my family was worried about during my brief stay in Boston was the shooting violence. in America. Whenever there was news about a shooting in the States, they would call me up and make sure that I was safe despite the fact that the shooting may have happened far away from Boston. For many Chinese, shootings are happening everywhere in the States.
We Chinese have a tremendous fear of guns because throughout our long history, civilians have never been equipped with guns, and the only time we have been near guns is during wartime.
China has really strict laws regarding gun control. According to the People’s Republic of China Firearms Management Law, Article 3, the State strictly controls firearms. China prohibits any unit or individual to violate the provisions of the law to hold, manufacture (including altering, assembling), trading, transporting, renting, or lending firearms. Only the state military police, correctional, and judicial organs can be equipped with guns. A few exceptions are securities for financial, storage, and research purposes, and only civilians’ firearm equipment is for wildlife preservation and hunting in special hunting grounds, all of which must get state approval. All in all, the only few times that I have come in close distance with an actual gun was when passing by the bank in the morning when the cash delivery trunk arrived and armed security guards were transporting cash.
Do I feel unsafe because I don’t have a gun to protect myself? My answer is I do not feel unsafe. I feel safe because the police are trained to protect me from any gun violence that would occur in Shanghai. I do not need to own a gun.
Property is an inalienable and sacred right in the US Constitution and culture. Property is often described as the right to protect personal property and personal rights. My college history professor in the US attributed the fight to protect personal right as the chief barrier to achieving better gun control in the States. The mass shootings in the United States are shocking the whole world. US politicians need to make sure that gun ownership is restricted so that guns will not be used to kill innocent people. But gun control is an issue clearly being controlled by the politicians.. I don’t know how the US is going to achieve gun control considering its history, beliefs and traditions of protecting personal rights runs against the rights of innocent children to be protected.
While China is the most populous country in the world, it only records a few dozen gun crimes a year. And more broadly, violent crime has continued falling, reaching its lowest level in 20 years in 2020, according to state-run news outlet Xinhua.
China has only achieved this level of gun safety through the removal of guns off the streets. Acc to CNN, they ran more raids and offered more freedom from prosecution in firearms amnesties in recent years. Police destroyed 69,000 illegal guns in 2020; in 2021, the government announced yet another four-month campaign to seize illegal guns.
China’s gun control policy is broadly popular among the public. Like many Chinese, Yan is deathly afraid of guns and believes that she is safer with stricter laws and enforcement
