Implement Stricter Gun Control Laws

I grew up believing that America was the best country in the world. And to this day, I will stand by my opinion that our economic and political systems, position on the global stage, and inclination to help other nations in need make our nation a great one. Of course, people will say that we intervene too much in other countries’ business or that we’re polarized and racist, but I think that we do pretty well, considering we have saved the world from the developments of evil empires, exemplified in WWI and WWII and we are one of the most racially and religiously diverse nations on the planet. This had led me to believe that we inherently have the opportunity to do more good in the world because of our many strengths. But as to the question, “Are we the best country in the world?” my answer has changed to no almost completely because of one issue: gun control.

The shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida sickened me. Evil is the only word that can explain what happened there. I remember in 2012 when Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, just 30 minutes away from where I lived. This massacre made me understand how low our society can go. Family, friends, community members and the entire nation watched the news and felt pain on that awful day. And over five years later in 2018, our lawmakers have done absolutely nothing that has helped make a change. The shooters may be evil, but our representatives who refuse to make change are, too.

Mother Jones has compiled a report detailing every mass shooting in the United States since 1982, discovering that 97 shootings have have occurred in the past 36 years, 53 of them have happened in the past decade. This is a shocking statistic for anyone, whether you support gun control or not. But what is almost as crazy is this: law enforcement can only confirm that illegal firearms have been used in 15 of the 97 shootings.

There have been cases in which investigators were not able to verify where the guns came from, but we know that legal firearms were used over 50 percent of the time. This single, frightening statistic should be all that we need in order to combat the popular sentiment that it is the people who buy guns illegally, off the street that are misusing them. But people stand by the Second Amendment, even though it was written at a time when gun violence like we see today was unprecedented. All of our other basic rights given to us in the Constitution are just as applicable today as they were in the 18th century except for the right to bear arms. Freedom of speech, religion, the press, public assembly and many more have proven to be a necessity in the United States for hundreds of years. Our Founding Fathers realized this necessity, but there is no way they could have predicted that, two hundred years into the future, Americans would be gunning down innocent men, women and children with semi-automatic weapons on a monthly basis.

And over five years later in 2018, our lawmakers have done absolutely nothing that has helped make a change.

President Trump claims that this is a mental health issue, and he is partially right. Of course, if you have the capability to murder dozens of strangers, classmates, fellow church goers, or whoever, you have to have severe mental health issues. But telling Americans to report people who seem mentally unstable cannot be our solution. Firstly, it is ludicrous to use our own judgment on who is capable of doing a mass shooting as the primary method of preventing these atrocities.

Secondly, gun control is a proven solution to this issue. In 1996, the Australian government responded to a shooting that took the lives of 35 people by implementing gun control laws that regulated firearms purchases. Today, you cannot buy a gun in Australia if you are under 18, do not have proper storage for the guns you intend to buy or use personal protection as your reason for needing a firearm. They also banned several semi-automatic and automatic weapons and introduced a buyback program for people who had legally bought the guns that were made illegal. The result of this legislation was over a decade without a mass shooting and a significant reduction in homicide and suicide rates. To put things into context, Australia had 69 homicides attributed to firearms in 1996 and only 30 in 2012. It is widely believed that the gun control legislation had at least some effect on deaths as a result of gun violence in Australia. But the people who contest it mainly argue that culture has more of an effect on a country and its changes than a law does. Still, I would argue that a government taking charge and banning dangerous weapons is significantly changing the culture of that nation, especially when that country is gun-crazy.

People stand by their guns, and they do so with pure ignorance. Guns kill. That is the bottom line. And sure, knives kill—hell, hands kill. But a knife can’t kill 58 and injure 546 people at a concert in Las Vegas from the 32nd floor of a hotel. And if anyone can provide evidence to the contrary, I will be more than happy to lead the fight against knives. But right now, I don't think anyone can.

So instead of providing silly counter-arguments to gun control as many of us do, I think we need to give up guns, even if many use them safely. Since 1966, over 1,077 people have died as a result of mass shootings, 176 of those being children and teenagers. No Amendment and no passion for guns, no matter how strong, can justify these deaths. It is our duty to prevent this from happening by urging our representatives to work for change. This is unacceptable. America, do your job. Fix this by implementing strict gun control laws now, or we will have to zip up more body bags on school grounds.