We all have grown up around guns. I, for one, played with them quite frequently as a child. They were plastic and made a popping sound when you shot them, and they were fun. I would at one point wear a tiny Army uniform I got for Christmas and a Korean War helmet my Aunt bought me. It was too big for me, but I didn’t care, and I soldiered on with a heavy green iron bucket on my head. I would shoot my cap rifle at my dad in the woods. When I got more cap guns, I’d make him bring one, and we’d shoot at each other. We created a phrase I hope that will one day catch on, “you might have won the war, but I shot you in the ass!”
Some of us have grown up in gun families, where you would go on a hunting trip every year. My dad still has his old rifle dismantled in our attic. He hasn’t used it in something like 25 years, but still, it’s there.
Even if you’ve done none of these things, you’ve probably played a video game where you had to kill something with a gun in order to save the world or have seen a movie where a hero must use a gun to save the day or read a book where the protagonist uses a gun.
Guns are a part of American culture and will never not be. They are seen as heirlooms, as symbols of our freedom, as an extension of the hand to fight evil. They are also tools, and we must know how to use them. I say this, never having fired a real gun, and without having the desire to own one. It’s not my thing.
As I am writing this, there are incoming news reports of another mass shooting. This one in San Bernadino, California, where there are currently twenty people wounded and “upwards of fourteen people” dead. It happens again and again, and I know we don’t like it. We are not a stupid country, and we are not an unfeeling country. So why are we not having a real conversation about this?
Gun laws around the country are all different because some states see the need to regulate them, or not. This is good, because there is not a one-size-fits-all answer for this. There are also federal laws regarding firearm sales, though these aren’t very restrictive. In fact, the only types of weapons that are federally restricted are Title II weapons like machine guns, explosives, and short barrel weapons. Some argue that more gun restriction will deter violence, though data shows the violence doesn’t necessarily occur where there are fewer laws.
In 2012, only seven murders were perpetrated by a firearm in Vermont, where there are almost no gun restriction laws in place. The number is much higher in states like Louisiana and Texas, whose gun control laws are very relaxed. California has stricter gun control laws, and they just suffered a terrible mass shooting. So it’s safe to say there is more to the answer than just more gun regulations, but the alternative is not any less complicated.
A theme commonly shared among these mass shooters is mental illness. Those who try to crusade against gun control legislation argue that these mentally disabled people can not be controlled and it will happen regardless of legal restraints. Yet it must be said that the last fifteen mass shootings were perpetrated by guns obtained legally, according to the New York Times.
So the obvious solution should be to limit people's ability to obtain weapons if they are mentally unstable. That sounds fine in theory, but who sets the standard for who is unable to purchase a gun? Who decides who is fit to carry a weapon? Personally speaking, I would not want to find myself on a list that restricts me from exercising my right and I know nobody else would regardless of how they feel about the issue.
There’s never an easy answer to anything. Everyone has an opinion and a way of thinkingm and when it comes down to something so important as the right to do as you please, everyone will be passionate about how they feel. I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop the violence soon, but I sure hope so. Nobody wants this to be a daily event.
