Reconciling Gun Rights
Armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle, a man burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire on the congregation within. By the time police were able to apprehend him after a deadly shoot-out, the incident had become the most lethal rampage against a Jewish community within the United States in history.
The shooting, which unfolded on Saturday, Oct. 27, on a quiet morning in Pittsburgh, was carried out by Robert D. Bowers, who had openly declared his hatred against Jews in the past. The Gab social media account registered under his name was filled with numerous anti-Semitic slurs and hate speech. He had ardently spoken out against HIAS, a Jewish non-profit organization that supports refugees. Just hours before the assault took place, he posted on his account: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
The massacre sparked even more nationwide outrage amid the torrent of other recent shootings. Jewish communities across the world have offered their support for the 11 innocent lives taken on Saturday. Our own Reverend Heidi Heath and Rabbi Jennifer Marx Asch joined in, organizing a vigil to mourn and spread “hope for a better world.”
With yet another shooting like this comes the quintessential question of how to effectively prevent such hateful crimes from occurring without infringing on personal liberty.
On one hand, those ardently opposed to gun control believe that any form of restriction on firearms counters the personal liberty explicitly endowed to all U.S. citizens by the Second Amendment. This principle is rooted deeply in our nation’s history, and at its passing, it was revolutionary because it granted an unprecedented degree of personal freedom to U.S. citizens by giving them the power to defend themselves.
It has been proven time and time again that when citizens are stripped of weapons, they are stripped of freedom and the power to fight against oppression. Throughout history, oppression, whether it be on behalf of communists in East Berlin or Nazis, has always been catalyzed by the defenseless situation of the people under it.
On the other hand, avid supporters of gun control argue that times are changing—that firearms are no longer necessary for protection in our developed society today. They argue that the personal freedom granted by gun rights do not justify the human lives lost to a lack of gun control. There is no question that the possession of guns in our nation is an issue: one needs only to look at the astonishingly large number of mass shootings—358 in 2017—in the U.S. that have occurred because hateful individuals were permitted to possess firearms.
So, what is the solution to this polarizing issue? The best way to deal with gun violence in the United States while maintaining our nation’s constitutional integrity is to regulate firearm possession slightly, and to focus more on stopping this problem at its root. As shown clearly by both parties discussed above, gun possession does cause unwanted violence, but too much gun regulation infringes on one of the founding tenets of this nation.
Thus, the best way to consider both viewpoints is to lightly regulate firearms. The semi-automatic weapons, such as the AR-15, so commonly used in mass shootings should be regulated. Background checks on those who attempt to purchase firearms should be carried out more thoroughly and include mental health tests, and the number of firearms a citizen can possess should be limited.
However, gun control should not extend any further than this because guns don’t kill people; people do. Even if gun regulation were implemented at its strictest form, even if citizens were not allowed to possess firearms, mass killings would still occur.
Anti-Semitic individuals like Bowers would murder innocent people with acid, homemade bombs, trucks and fire, instead. Although these methods are not as lethal as guns, they can still do significant damage. Therefore, we cannot pin our safety on absolute gun control, for the sake of our lives and personal liberty.
What we should be focusing our time on is halting this problem at its root. Every mass shooting has one common theme: it sprouts from some form of hatred. This hatred is caused often times by issues like mental health, ignorance and insularity.
We as a nation must take active steps to ensure that those with mental health issues do not harm our society and take innocent lives. We need to improve outreach to troubled individuals to help provide stability. Failure to do so will breed a terrible rage. We must also promote open-mindedness and dispel ignorance in future generations from the moment that they are born, especially through our education system, to prevent the proliferation of blind hatred. Only then will our nation’s gun violence end.