Public Health Initiatives on Gun Control Term Paper (Term Paper Sample)

Public Health Initiatives on Gun Control
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SECTION 1
All over the world, people live with diverse problems. Some people live in poor deplorable conditions; others live in war-prone areas, some in conditions of servitude. But in all these states, people still have the hope of overcoming such barriers to healthy life. Deplorable conditions of life arising from the economic status of individuals can be overcome with ease. Improvement of the economic position of such people is possible through programs that gear towards uplifting their sources of income. However, one problem that may obstruct the realization of the dream life is poor health. To a large extent, an individual’s health status determines how much he or she can achieve. Chronic ill health limits the individual’s engagement in economic activities. Poor health disables the person; he or she is frail and incapacitated by the illness. A chronically unhealthy person is under perpetual condemnation to a life of weakness, inability to engage in any gainful economic activities. He or she becomes a constant liability to the family; hospital bills incurred must be settled by family members, some of whom might also not be economically well-off. It would, therefore, be worth all the effort for nations to join hands on a global platform and address health issues. If all and sundry confronted health-related issues at all angles, then the propensity for real life could be somewhat forthcoming. But the question is, ‘what do we mean by health?’ Different spheres have diverse definitions for the word. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, health is the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially freedom from physical disease or pain. The medical dictionary on the other hand defines health as “a relative state in which one is able to function well physically, mentally, 
Socially, and spiritually in order to express the full range of one's unique potentialities within the environment in which one is living” CITATION Fal12 \l 1033 (Falex Partner Medical Dictionary, 2012). Rene Dubos expounds on this definition as primarily a measure of each person’s ability to do and become what he wants to become. To address health-related issues, nations of the world have come together to form a global agency. This body is known as the World Health Organization, abbreviated, WHO. As a specialized agency of the United Nations, WHO is concerned with public health. The objective of WHO, according to its Constitution, is the attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health. By health, WHO means “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” CITATION WHO \l 1033 (WHO). Going by these definitions, we can then come up with different explanations of states of health. A healthy person is one who portrays soundness in totality; in body, mind, and spirit. He or she is able to function properly in all aspects. He or she is upright physically, socially, spiritually, and mentally. By being upright in all these domains, the person is not under any threat or suppression. He or she, therefore, exhibits the serenity of life with normalcy. A trace deficiency of any of these aspects in a person’s conduct will, therefore, amount to poor health or unhealthy. According to WHO definition, the mere absence of disease or infirmity in an individual does not automatically amount to good health. A person may, therefore, be physically upright to be said to be health body-wise. But when the person is threatened spiritually, socially, or mentally, he or she would accordingly be unhealthy. These are ideal conditions that may not be visual to the laymen, but will come out apparently for medical specialists. These domains of health will, therefore, form the basis of arguments and explanations in this paper. What therefore constitutes good health as advocated by public health advocacy agencies?
Public Health is “the science of protecting and improving the health of families and communities through promotion of healthy lifestyles, research for disease and injury prevention and detection and control of infectious diseases” CITATION CDC \l 1033 (CDC Foundation). Accordingly, public health professionals endeavor to protect the health of entire populations. These populations may be local, regional or global. This area of health is concerned with preventing and improving the health of all communities by prescribing healthy lifestyles. They are therefore concerned with the prevention of health problems from happening or recurring. In pursuit of these goals, they come in handy right before the problems occur, in contrast to clinical professionals who assist when the problems have already struck the victim. For these and many other reasons, the public health sector recommends policies, implements educational programs, administers services, and conducts research. It is within the jurisdiction of the area of public health to develop and advocate sound public health policies, implement prevention strategies, foster safe and healthy environments, promote healthy behaviors, detect and investigate health problems, and monitor health. In all these endeavors, public health aims at prolonging life. In his daily efforts, man has tried to address various issues. Notable is explorations of threats to human existence. Some scholars have advanced to exploring existential risks that venture into human extinction. These look into the far future; disasters that could end history. However, in our day to day lifestyles, we have adopted and enacted several laws that threaten human life. We live in neighborhoods where life may be terminated at a flick of a switch, or even by the little deliberate or unintentional pull of a trigger. All over the world, people are in possession of fatal home-made or officially-issued guns. These weapons vary in complexity and use. Some people have guns that are licensed by the governments, under the guise of personal protection. Others possess guns illegally; for perpetrating heinous crimes for personal gains. Certain parts of the world are classified as extremely dangerous for human habitation. Such areas include South Central Los Angeles, parts of Mexico etcetera, just to mention but a few. Those in possession of guns vary in age; some have mental incapacitation; others are psychotics who may shoot at anyone in their proximity. The global media is today inhabited with news of the mass shooting of innocent civilians by insane individuals. Cases of homicides are on the rise globally. Delinquents have invaded schools, hospitals, theaters and all sorts of places inhabited by innocent people, and committed acts of felony and mass killings. These heinous acts have raised a lot of concern on the global scale. People everywhere live in fear of the unknown. Parents fear for the safety of their children wherever they are. They never can tell when such monstrous, barbaric and merciless felons can strike. All such facts reveal how the situation of arming people with guns has become. We have lost young and adult life in incidences we could have been controlled. Research findings by the National Academy of Sciences Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior revealed pertinent matters; it was evident that most murders in the US are effected using firearms. The risk of killing with guns falls disproportionately on young people; young minority men, particularly black men, are at high risks of being killed using firearms. Further findings tally murders committed with firearms in the United States at sixty percent of the total death toll. Apparently, it was found out that although greater availability of gun increases the rate of murder and felony, it seemingly does not appear to affect the general violence levels. Self-defense was commonly cited as the reason behind the acquisition of guns. However, it was unclear how often they applied guns in self-defense against unprovoked attacks. Further findings of the research disclosed that gun users in violent crimes rarely acquired them from licensed dealers; most of the guns had been stolen or transferred between individual users after the original purchase. An alarming finding was that victims of robberies and assault have a high propensity to die when the perpetrator of the crime is armed with a gun than when the latter is unarmed with a gun or has another weapon. Following these disclosures then, it is the high time the world came up together and developed policies for controlling the use and access to firearms; systems and structures that would either de-legalize indiscriminate licensing of guns to civilians or for licensing controls on guns. An important role of WHO in Public health is the monitoring of the health situation and assessing health trends. Besides, the agency is mandated with the provision of leadership on matters critical to the health and engaging in partnerships where joint action is needed; as well as catalyzing change, and building sustainable institutional capacity. By any standards of the World Health Organization, the plummeting misuse of firearms leading to mass deaths is horrendous. The role of WHO in protecting the health and preventing the occurrence of health hazards is under constant threat. The growing illicit use ...