I’m not about to pitch my idea of the best gun reform laws, because I genuinely have no idea. It is absolutely horrible that the amount of school shootings and gun violence has increased so much over the past few years. I was really shocked after the Newtown, CT shooting when no gun legislation was thoroughly discussed to prevent something like that from happening again. I was surprised after the Aurora, CO shooting at a movie theater, when there wasn’t very much action done other than sending thoughts and prayers.
I, again, was horrified when I heard about the school shooting in my home state that is only a few hours away; but I heard it one day in one ear and the next day, I heard silence again. So, that’s three times documented where there is a shooting and not much has been done legislation-wise about it afterwards. Number four, but a little different this time: Am I surprised that there was a school shooting in Florida that killed students? No, not really. However, I was surprised to see the town hall Marco Rubio put on and the national outcry that has been happening ever since.
Gun violence is horrible. Anything involving violence usually is not good. And so here we are again, asking the same question we have been asking for years: should there be stricter gun laws in America to prevent future shootings? And if so, what should that entail?
Like I said before, I have no idea what that answer is. I won’t pretend like I do or try to speculate an answer based on something incredibly sensitive right now that has fair points to both sides of an argument. I do still want to talk about something else though that seems to be prominent with more and more cases of gun violence in America.
I know that for me, I hear people my age joke about depression or wanting to die all the time. I don’t ever really hear a serious discussion about mental health unless I go out of my way to look for it. However, almost every time I see something pop up on my screen about a shooting, somehow and someway, the words “mentally ill” get thrown around with it.
Personally, I find this incredibly annoying. The media does over exaggerate things and does tend to paint a story, but why this one? Why can’t the shooter just be labeled as a shooter who needs to go to jail? In other words, maybe a bit too outright, but true words: why is the behavior of shooting up a place less horrible with the person being labeled mentally ill?
No, it’s not every shooter. No, it’s not every media headline. But it is enough to be a problem, so much so a problem that if you turn to someone they may say “well, yeah, but they were mentally ill.” Okay… and? There are lots of people who are considered mentally ill, but they don’t kill other people or commit such aggressive acts and then blame it on not being neurotypical.
If we tell people who get offended so easily and then act out that they are just being too sensitive or that they’re just snowflakes, then what do we do when someone acts out so violently that it physically harms other people? We don’t call that sensitivity anymore: that’s committing a crime. Crime should not be something excusable, especially if it claims lives. If we are to rely on our laws that we have now or stride to keep people in a sensible range of freedom, we cannot excuse behavior that endangers the rest of society or shows other potential shooters that if they do the same thing, they’ll be labeled as mentally ill and then that’s the end of it.
Even if they are mentally ill, we, as individuals in a society, have to take responsibility for reckless action. This article is more of a feisty one, but it truly is something to think about as time passes. If we say we are the progressive society we are, how does this call for legislation keep fading into the background again and again? How is it that Columbine is not on the list for the 10 most deadly U.S. shootings anymore?
What’s happened here needs to not be excused, but rather fixed. If stricter gun laws are the way to do it, fine. If not, fine. But it is not fair to label someone as mentally ill and move on with the day when this has been deemed a national crisis again and again and we have to teach kindergarteners how to hide in case someone comes to their school with a gun.
