By Gavin Mullin

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While looking at Gun Policy on a Global scale, it dawned on me that despite the people’s best interest and their involvement within their government, there may be a stronger influence on firearm regulations. Giving people the power to vote through democracy enables the majority rules factor; But in society today, it’s not that simple. Majority rule is absolutely an advantage when it comes to laws which leads to the best interest of the people and while voting may seem fair, there are a couple of stronger impacts on resolving issues within governments. Money, being the most important influencer in my opinion, is easily the biggest and fastest way to conclude decisions within governments.

Money rules the world, and unfortunately, many important decisions within governments are finalized due to how much of the money is given in favor of one outcome. The NRA (National Rifle Association) is notoriously known for their huge donations for campaigns and most recently donated almost $12 million dollars to help fund Donald Trump during the 2016 election, and on the contrary, almost a whopping $20 million dollars to groups going against Hillary Clinton. 

Why is this information relevant you ask? With all of this influx of money Donald Trump received, it enabled him to do more things benefitting his campaign where he eventually one. Things like rallies, research and supplies, and money to pay those working for him all were possible by the amount of money received by donors. Money, being a main enabler for decisions, can be very persuasive and decisive when it comes to concluding ideas and this highlights the dark side of politics. 

My research fits into existing research with the support of my charts and graphs that give visible answer for how impactful certain restrictions are for determining laws for countries around the world. In my chart of countries, I looked at their population levels, Freedom House score, and veto points in a scale system I made. With these numbers, it shows which countries have more freedoms and which ones have more restrictions against them by their governments. For those countries that do have more restrictions, these are the same countries where money plays a key factor for deciding laws and potential regulations.

Continuing on with what I previously mentioned, the data I gathered involved the populations of the countries I included, the amount of veto points they receive from their government from a scale I made of possible restrictions given to the country, and the countries Freedom House score. I also looked at “Financial Law Strictness” and “Gun Strictness” and generated scales to better understand how each country levels out per category. 

Country	Finance Law Strictness	Gun strictness	Freedom House Score	Population	Veto Points
Australia	4	1	98	25,203,198	2
Austria	3.25	5.5	93	8,955,102	2
Belgium	14	3	96	11,539,328	2
Canada	21	2.5	99	37,411,047	2
Chile	23	2	94	18,952,038	3
Czech Republic	11.5	4.5	91	10,689,209	3
Denmark	0	2	97	5,771,876	1
Estonia	20	4	94	1,325,648	2
Finland	12	1.5	100	5,532,156	1
France	16.5	1	90	65,129,728	2
Germany	7.5	1.5	94	83,517,045	3
Greece	12.5	1.5	87	10,473,455	2
Hungary	11.5	1	70	9,648,679	1
Iceland	15.25	1	94	339,031	1
Ireland	10	0.5	97	4,882,495	3
Israel	22.5	2	78	8,519,377	2
Italy	12.5	3	89	60,550,075	3
Japan	14	0	96	126,860,301	2
Luxembourg	11.25	1	98	615,729	1
Netherlands	0.5	1	99	17,097,130	2
New Zealand	3	1	98	4,783,063	1
Norway	4	1.5	100	5,378,857	1
Poland	18.5	4.5	84	37,887,768	2
Slovakia	11	2	88	5,457,013	1

Concluding my findings, the numbers that I collected were very close to what I had originally predicted. My original prediction was that there would be limited strictness for not only guns, but campaign finance laws as well for the countries that I considered low in population, or to be honest, just those countries that are smaller on the level of power retaining on a global scale of powers around the world. I also thought that countries that are known for being corrupt such as Brazil, Mexico, and even the United States would have higher restriction numbers being that money is a main contributor for decision making in these countries. 

What I found was that these numbers suggested my previous thoughts, as well as surprising me for other countries. I would’ve thought that countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Algeria to have higher restriction numbers, but with lack of finances received, it deems that all power remains within government heads, and don’t seem to be persuaded by money.

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