The Orlando Shooting was an incredible tragedy that shook-up not just Florida, but the entire world. Following, many political debates ensued. Both front-runners for the 2016 election used the tragedy to fuel their campaign fires. A stand-off between GOP front-runner Donald Trump and President Obama hit every news station in America. A filibuster even took place on senate floor for nearly 15 hours, urging politicians to vote on new proposed gun control legislation.
First and foremost, I want to give my condolences to the friends and family of those who were injured or killed during the terrible events that occurred at The Pulse Nightclub. I can’t even begin to imagine your sorrow, pain and loss. I am sincerely sorry. To Orlando, and the entire LGBTQ community, know that I stand with you in solidarity. You are not alone.
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Nothing I say will ever bring these young men and women back. So, the question becomes:
How many times does this have to happen before we do something about it?
Hundreds of thousands of lives have been tragically lost at the hands of a killer that holds a gun. In 2016 alone, 136 mass shootings have taken place, according to CNN. And newsflash folks, we are only SIX MONTHS INTO 2016. This problem is not going away. It is only getting worse. Now is time for gun control.
Now, I know many people have very strong emotions about gun control. So to those of you already preparing the following arguments, let me just make a few things clear:
“You are tryna take my guns away!”
No, no, no. We are not trying to take your guns away. Keep your damn guns. Gun control does not involve taking away guns, just trying to prevent them from falling into the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. In fact, according to USA Today the two proposed gun control laws following the filibuster I mentioned earlier, are:
-Banning gun sales from suspected terrorists including those on “no-fly” and FBI-watch lists
-Universal background checks on those wanting to purchase guns
Now both of these seem to make a lot of sense! The first especially. Why wouldn’t you want to prevent a suspected terrorist from getting a gun? ISIS leaders have even personally stated that it is so incredibly easy to get guns in the United States. It would make sense that in order to prevent terrorist attacks, both international and homegrown, we should stop giving terrorists those guns.
In addition, universal background checks would prevent guns from ending up in the hands of those with violent or criminal pasts that may be a threat. This is an additional security check to keep the guns out of the bad guy’s reach. Some people may argue background checks are intrusive but, you’d be shocked how many things require background checks now-of-days. Guess what, your job has probably already done a background check on you.
“But, it is our second amendment right to own guns!”
Ah, the good ol’ second amendment argument. There are so many things I can say to this, but I will start with:
Are you allowed to yell “FIRE!” in a public place when there is no fire? Nope. Actually it is illegal. But isn’t that your first amendment right?
What about if you threaten someone? Defamation of character? Why aren’t these protected as freedom of speech? When protests become violent, they are no longer a right. When a religion becomes cult, their (read: illegal) actions are no longer protected by the constitution.
So you mean to tell me there are limitations on our first amendment rights? Yep. Anything that can inflict harm or injury of a person are not protected under first amendment rights. So why then, would it be unacceptable to have limitations on the second amendment right? If we consider words to be dangerous or harmful, why do we not consider GUNS, literal weapons meant to harm or injure people, dangerous?
In addition, we already have already had legislation on gun control in the past. According to Paul Waldman, of The Week, in 1994 a federal ban on assault weapons existed which expired in 2004. AND The Salon tells us the NRA even helped write federal laws restricting gun use all the way up until the 1980s! THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, PEOPLE. One of the people I follow on twitter said it best when they said “I don’t think citizens need access to assault rifles and I don’t think that’s too crazy of a thought.” This is a totally different argument, for a different day though. The current propositions do not even discuss assault rifles, so we will move on from this now that I made that point. Besides, we aren’t talking about taking away your guns, (even assault rifles,) remember?
“Gun control will only take guns away from the good people!”
This argument drives me a little crazy. The two proposed gun legislations, as I stated before, will stop guns from falling into the hands of those who shouldn’t have them. Guess what! If you aren’t a terrorist or a convicted felon, you are golden! If you are a normal everyday citizen with nothing to hide, you literally have NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Gun control won’t even affect you. You can go ahead and buy all of the guns your little heart desires.
We aren’t talking about banning guns. We aren’t talking about disallowing regular citizens for getting them. You can even keep buying assault rifles, even though I personally don’t see why the heck you would need one. You can still protect yourself, as needed.
Will the gun control stop every bad person in the world from getting guns? No. But it will make it a heck of a lot harder.
“After 9/11 we didn’t blame the planes we blamed the people!”
You aren’t wrong on this one. However, we did limit the people who were allowed on those planes. We also limited what was allowed on these planes, increased security, began new programs to prevent future terrorist attacks, and armed every plane with a US Marshall. We LEARNED from 9/11. We didn’t let 136 more terrorist attacks using planes happen. Did we have to sacrifice a little, sure. Nobody likes those long security lines at the airport. But at the end of the day we made the US, and planes, safer.
Guess what! Gun control is the exact. same. concept.
Stopping bad guys getting on planes, stopping bad guys getting guns.
Increasing security, increasing background checks.
Preventing future attacks, preventing future shootings.
We aren’t saying guns are the problem. We are saying the people who are easily getting these guns, with ill-intentions, are the problem. We are talking about an instrument whose sole purpose is to end lives here, after-all.
“Gun control wouldn’t have saved the people in Orlando anyways!”
If you even say this argument, shame on you. Although this is true (Omar Mateen was taken off of the FBI-watch list,) does that even matter? If these new laws can even save just one single life, why wouldn’t that be worth it? Imagine your son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother, cousin, grandparent, friend being spared because a dangerous individual wasn’t able to get a gun. It will not prevent every mass shooting, that is true, but it is a start. And it could just save you.
