Most of us have heard about the tragic shooting in Las Vegas that occurred last night. With the death count rising from 59, and over 525 injured, this was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. It just so happens that the second deadliest shooting in American history happened less than 16 months ago, at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando. How many more massacres must occur before we realize that the current gun laws are too loose, and people should not have such easy access to automatic weapons? Even the killer's brother said, "I want to know how he got automatic weapons". We are the only country in the world that can accept 20 children being killed in their school due to gun violence (Sandy Hook shooting). In 1996, there was a mass shooting in Austrailia that killed 35 people. Due to that incident, the Australian government with different political backgrounds came together to pass legislation enforcing tighter availability of guns. Since then, the amount of gun violence in Australia has gone down tremendously. Too many people have accepted the normality of mass slaughter as a necessary sacrifice to an amendment written when guns held one bullet. Over the last 20 or so hours that this shooting has been covered, Stephen Paddock has been labeled as a "lone wolf", "disturbed individual", but very few are calling him what he really is: a terrorist. At this point, it is not enough for the President and other lawmakers to send their condolences and prayers. We need to make a change and enforce tighter gun control. People are dying.
Making gun laws has always been hard. Mostly due to the fact that it requires for the buyer to give up their personal information and they buyers feel that their privacy is being invaded. At the same time people want strict gun laws to make it hard for anyone to buy guns. It's hard to accommodate both groups.
ReplyDeleteI feel like if they have an issue with people knowing that they own a gun and believe that it "invades their privacy", then they shouldn't own on a gun. We have to realize that the hard process if going to be worth it at the end. People wouldn't be able to able to get guns without having to go through a process and it would prevent innocent lives from being taken away.
ReplyDeleteGun control cannot be made into an issue of privacy. Guns have the potential to severely and fatally injure people. It has been shown time and again just how destructive guns can be. Some things merely need to be regulated. In regulating guns, no one is policing morality or freedom to express oneself. Regulating guns is about keeping society safe. A gun is only and only a weapon, no other purpose exists other than to grievously injure someone, and thus there have to be limitations and regulations for owning guns.
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ReplyDeleteI think that this shooting should be a wake up call to get people to speak out more on gun control so we can prevent more shootings from happening in the future. The more we speak on it, the more attention will be brought to it so we can try to make change. I think people should still be able to own guns for their own security (or hunting purposes), but there should be more limiations on how many guns you own, what kind, size etc. You don't need a semi-auto to hunt or for self protection, so why are they being sold?
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of you, however I feel like it'll be really difficult to do anything about gun control, since our president is pro guns. It's not just him, a lot of his supporters only supported him because of his promises to change gun control. Also most people who have guns feel safer with them, and are very unlikely to give that them up, or in any way further oppress their gun rights and liberties. We also have to realize that gun control is where it is because of incidents like these.
ReplyDeleteI really like the point brought up about the history of gun control. When the founding fathers put it in, the weapons available were inaccurate and could only shoot one bullet. Much less fatal than the weapons people can obtain today. Additionally, a lot of people say they want guns in their house for protection but more often than not we see that the owners guns end up being used against them. Having a firearm increases likelihood of firearm homicide or suicide.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it was the deadliest, the Vegas shooting was not the first time a mass amount of innocent victims were killed simply due to the fact that dangerous weapons were in the hands of the wrong people. This should be a wake up call to get us to really start taking action and speaking out about public safety and fixing gun control laws.
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