April 22, Antioch Tennessee, Waffle House, four dead. April 18, Asheville North Carolina, home, four dead. February 17, Pompano Beach Florida, School, 17 dead. There have been a total of 31 shootings in the past 30 days, a total of 55 lives have been taken, 178 people injured, and countless lives affected. Mass shootings have been plaguing this country since Labor Day, 1949 when Howard Unruh took the lives of 13 people.
Now fast forward to today; 2018. The United States hears about mass shootings on a regular basis. The US is so accustomed to mass shootings that it seems to be ordinary that we hear about another mass shooting. We seem to have a system or should I say a guideline that each shooting follows. The shooter is most likely a white male in between the ages 18-25, he was either racist or homophobic. A few days after the shooting the media notifies the public that the shooter had a “troubled past” and showed signs that he was going to murder innocent people, but no one decided to intervene.
All of social media will mourn for a few days by posting pictures of the deceased with a hashtag that looks like #prayfor(insert any mass shooting: Parkland, Antioch, Sandy Hook, etc) or #(insert mass shooting)strong for example #parklandstrong. Finally, after a week of the media covering the mass shooting, it will disappear from everyone's timeline and the news will no longer be covering the horrible event and we will wait a week or two before we will start the process all over.
Political Parties will argue whether or not gun control is the right choice. Proud gun owners will clutch their gun to their chest and declare the all too familiar statement "A gun didn't kill those people a human being did, so why do we blame guns." Then the other side will give their reason why we should limit who gets what guns and it becomes a back and forth argument, meanwhile innocent lives are being taken every single day nothing is done.
Every day parents send their kids to school never knowing if they will see them again alive. Moviegoers fear that the gunshots they hear are actually real ones or are just ones from the movie. Hungry patrons fear that this next bite of waffle will be their last. We shouldn't have to be scared that a man will burst in and shoot us while doing everyday activities. Something has to be done!
There are a total of 195 countries in the world, and the United States is the only one to have a Mass Shooting problem at this magnitude. Whether gun users would like to admit; the reason why we have this issue is that it is so easy to get a gun. What do I have to do to get a gun you may ask? Attend a gun show, go up to a table selling a gun, give them money, and now you own a gun. No test, no background check, nothing. The requirements? Money. That is a huge issue we must fix. A first step we must take is to look at what other countries are doing, why aren't these countries having this problem like we are? We must analyze what gun control laws they have set in place and see how the United States can use that to help stop mass shootings in our home.
Unfortunately, the problem with implementing gun control laws is our citizens who support the second amendment so heavily. They hear the word gun control and immediately shut down. They think gun control means the US is going to ban all guns completely. That is not the case; people who support gun control want to ban guns that are predominantly used for mass shootings such as the AR-15, not all guns.
I would like to propose a simple question to those who do not agree with gun control. What do you want the United States to do? Do nothing? Sit quietly and let innocent people die?
