26 innocent lives, taken too soon.
20 children.
After this week, how can we deny that society needs to change?
It seems
like every time a shooting massacre like this occurs, we repeat this same
mantra that "today
is not the day" to discuss gun control, for fear of politicizing a
tragedy. But if we aren't willing to have an honest discussion about guns now,
when will we? It is a greater disservice to ignore the reality of violence than
to address it head on and prevent it from happening again. I appreciate bloggers out there taking a “day
of silence” for the Newton shootings, but I’d rather speak up.
We as a
country lose thousands of people each year to gun violence (more in six months
than all the casualties of terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined).
But, with each tragedy, we are quickly warned by gun supporters that we can't
have that discussion. To even bring it up is to be accused of “politicizing a
tragedy” or “infringing on gun owners' freedoms.”
We’re not talking about banning guns
completely, simply putting in place
some reasonable restrictions that would provide a line of defense against mass
killings like the one in Newtown without infringing on so-called “reasonable”
uses for guns. Assault rifles aren't meant for hunting or sport. They are
specifically designed to do as much damage as possible to the human body. These
need eliminated.
And there are certain people, specifically
felons and those with mental illness, who should not be allowed access to gun. The main aversions to gun control seem to be:
- People will get guns anyway,
no matter the law.
When we, as a public, choose to make
something illegal, we are making a statement that the item in question is
dangerous and doesn't belong in our society. Doing so makes it harder (not
impossible, but harder) for people to get the item, and it provides law
enforcement with an opportunity to act. We don't make things illegal with the
expectation that in so doing we will completely obliterate the underlying
problem. We make the thing illegal to help cut down on the problem the best we
can.
Few argue we
should legalize heroin and meth, but they are readily obtained by those who
want them. Same with counterfeit bills, insider trading, and stealing cable
television. They all still exist, but that doesn't mean we would want to make
these things legal.
Yes, eliminating weapons that don't
need reloading as often would not have made Newtown impossible to happen. But
that is a straw argument. The real question is would a ban on certain types of
guns make it harder for disturbed individuals to get their hands on these
devastating weapons and engage in mass killings. And the answer is
unquestionably yes.
- Guns don't kill people,
people kill people. Yes, but
people kill people a lot more effectively with guns.
- Taking away my guns is the
first step to taking away my freedom.
How is having a gun the symbol of freedom? The "freedoms" argument is
nothing more than a rhetorical smoke screen. It is, again, irrational. If the
federal government were to enact a ban on assault rifles, the only people who
would have their freedoms infringed would be those trying to carry out a
Newtown-like attacks.
The vast majority of gun control advocates are asking for common sense measures to help make it harder for someone like Lanza to brutally murder 26 people, 20 of whom were between 5 and 10 years of age, to limit access to especially
destructive weapons, especially by those most likely to use them to kill
What would “meaningful action” look
like?
If you are compelled to act, there are a number of ways to make
your voice heard:
·
Sign your name to this White House petition in support of gun control reform,
including measures to restrict access to semi-automatic weapons and to require
background checks as part of the process of buying a gun
·
Tweet at President Obama: #todayistheday that our country needs to start a conversation
about gun control and violence, @BarackObama
·
Share these stats: 60% of Americans support background checks for every
gun sale and bans on both extended ammunition clips and semi-automatic
weapons
Today is that day.
25 comments:
I agree with you 100%. Beautifully written. I am signing that petition.
Well said! I have been saying this for years. I am not into guns at all. I am married to a man who was in the Army and yea of course he wants a gun for in the home, I told him HELL NO! I do not want one of those things in my presence. The whole for safety reasons thing is a joke. This guys mother had them in her home yet he got to them and he killed all these people including the mother whose guns they were! I mean come on people.
I so agree with you.
Very well said. ♥
I am so glad your wrote this. I couldn't have said it better myself.
I read your blog all the time but don't usually comment. Today though you are WAY off base. It is a mental health issue and not a gun control issue. Just my opinion.
Well said. There are many things that need to be addressed, and gun control is indeed one of them. As the previous commented suggests, mental health is also one of them. There's no one solution. I'm Canadian, and we just don't have a comparable amount of these types of tragedies. Here, you are allowed to own guns if you are deemed suitable to do so. Health care, including mental health, is free and widely available. I'm not saying it's perfect, because there are always issues. But something about it seems to be helping. I don't know the answers, but these are just my thoughts :)
Although this is valid, I agree with Sandy in saying it is a mental illness issue. I read an article yesterday and in the article they made a good point, they said even if our guns were taken away, someone with mental illness could massacre in another way, for example homemade bombs. Instead of "locking up" the mentally ill there needs to be a better system in handling these people who are still members of our society. I guess we can thank Ronald Reagan for the funding cuts for mental illness.
Although I am pro-gun I completely agree that there needs to be reform on the laws and policies in place. It's too easy to obtain them and there should be a more through background check. There should also be regulations on the caliber gun a person can own.
What about hunters? Is hunting animals going to be illegal? As a family that owns several guns for recreational purposes, I can't wrap my head around the idea that such a pastime would no longer be allowed.
(I'm an elementary teacher so it's not as if I'm insensitive to the issue at hand.)
-Kristin
Do hunters use automatic rifles for hunting? I don't know much about hunting so maybe they do but I think the automatic assault rifles are for war-why do reg people need access to those? I don't think it's any one problem but some measure of gun control is a start. Other areas need to be addressed too but we can't just do nothing and expect that this is going to stop happening.
This could not have been written ANY better. Yes, Friday was a sad day and so many lives were taken... but gun control has nothing to do with it. And if you take away guns you take away freedom, and people will find another way. Just last week there was a stabbing spree in China. We can't just blame everything on guns. There are so many other aspects to the story.
I respectfully must disagree. There is a metal health component here that must be address. If there is someone in a household with a metal condition, certain precautions should be taken. This is NOT the time to start banning firearms.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map
There already IS a system in place for background check in order to purchase a firearm. The Second Amendment is just about OWNING a gun but giving an American citizen the right to defend themselves.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Sorry. Grammar check (is not just about...
After reading your post I agree with you. I think this country needs to look into both gun control and mental health issues. Restrictions need to be made and something needs to be done about people with mental health issues. If we don't act on either of these topics what are we saying as a society? That we're willing to let this happen again? It's clear now that this needs to be looked into at the very least, as the President said "we need to try, we're not doing enough."
As far as gun control goes, you've hit the nail on the head. But other commenters have also hit on a VERY important piece of the puzzle, which is mental illness. As someone who knows what mental illness looks like (because of one of my cousins), I have been put in a situation when I had to call the cops, who in turn had no clue about how to handle the situation. Nor did I. It's more than gun control and gun reform -- there's a huge problem in this country with the way that mental illness is handled. That IS the problem in this individual's case, and access to guns was absolutely a factor.
I heard one man on TV saying that if not everyone can have a weapon, they can't protect themselves when such a crazy person is shooting, and that the gunman will then be even more confident and do more harm when he knows the victims have nothing to fight against him.
But I don't think like that. In my mind that man who said that on TV thinks like that, because he sells weapons. I would not make guns completely illegal but I think it shouldn't be that easy for everyone to get them. There are places where everyone can sell their weapons, without a background check, and even kids can go there - and some parents really take their kids to such a place which I would never do.
In countries like Germany not everyone is allowed to have a weapon. You need a gun license, you and your gun are registered.
It should be more difficult to get a gun and we should do something. What happened in Newtown is a real tragedy, and it should not happen again somewhere else. We need to talk, we need to think about it and change, do something.
As you said people kill people, and there should be a test or something like that, to figure out if someone can handle a gun. People who have a mental illness should not have access to a gun. Neither kids of course.
Oh boy, I am so glad that an American has stood up and said what everyone over here in Australia is thinking. When it happened, my facebook feed was littered with Australians all horrified about the fact that American's still refuse to tighten gun laws. We used to have similar laws to yours until in 1996 when there was a gun massacre. After that guns were banned and do you want to know how many massacres we have had since then? None. In the meantime I think I saw something like 33 massacres had occurred in America. The statistics speak for themselves. While I agree that there is a mental health issue that needs to be dealt with, I think we can't sweep under the rug the issue of guns being too readily available.
I agree with everything you say here. So well written. I couldn't put all this into words but you have done so in such a beautiful way. Great post. Thank you.
Such a well written post that needed to be posted! Thank you, Shane. I am participating in the Blogger Day of Silence and Support tomorrow, but I also agree with you - we need to speak up as well.
Has it even been six months since the Aurora, Colorado shooting? These mass shootings are happening way too often. Something needs to be done. Something needs to change.
~Kim
This is a mental health issue. I've been a registered nurse for 6 years and have gen. anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and of course depression which is related to the anxiety (you can't have one without the other). The people that keep shooting up the schools are in some way having serious mental illness and psychosis which MUST be treated with anti-psychotics. These mass shootings are becoming more frequent, and it seems like it's always some troubled young man.
You HAVE to have a gun permit to carry a gun in every state in the country and you have to be either 18 or 21-I'm lazy and I'm not wasting my time looking this up-, otherwise it's illegal. You cannot carry a gun if you have a felony, sex offender charges, and probably other charges I'm not aware of. If you have a suspended driver's license, or a DUI/DWI charge on your license, you cannot carry a gun until you're done with probation, in the state of MI. If you are caught with drugs with a gun in the car, it's a felony, no matter what the circumstances. When you have your permit to carry a gun, which requires shooting classes, then you go buy your gun and register it. You can't just walk up in a gun store as a kid, buy a gun and start carrying it. While that can theoretically happen, it is illegal. These kids are getting crazy guns that are even illegal to purchase for anyone. Tell me, how you can you have laws on something that is already illegal?
I live about 30 minutes from Detroit. I'm not afraid of Detroit, although there are killings on the news EVERY single day. Every single day. It's the worst it's been in decades for homicides. I could find drugs in 5 minutes, but I wouldn't know how to get a gun. You have to know someone, that knows someone, that knows someone, that knows someone. It's not as easy as it seems. This is my experience-maybe it's different in other areas of the country.
I don't agree with making guns illegal. You are giving the government TOTAL control of the country with ALL the power. It is one of the few things that make this country the way the founding fathers dreamed up.
The only thing left to do is prevention. I live in Belleville, which is a small town between Detroit and Ann Arbor. Detroit schools have had metal detectors and security guards since the 80s when gangs were really big. I know that Belleville High School has had security guards for at least 5 years, and they are mostly there to break up fights. Where I live is what the "Detroit Suburbs" were to Detroit about 30-40 years ago. Every school in the district has had an emergency plan in place since Columbine, and they have practice drills twice a year on what to do. (I substituted while my sister was getting Chemo, so I know this firsthand). So, if guns are illegal to kids in the first place, how is more laws going to change the outcome? It's not going to. Unfortunately there are bad people in the world, and there are a lot of sick people in the world. I was SO sick of the posts on Facebook: "How could someone do this?" BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE ARE MENTALLY ILL. It's not the guns. I don't own a gun, because I never want to be the person who snaps and makes a bad decision. But if I lived alone, I would get a small handgun for protection. I don't want to lose this privilege because another kid went crazy and shot up another school. I'm sorry for the tone, I'm not angry at anyone here, I'm just angry at the situation. The bottom line that we all can agree on, is that something has to change.
deff. a hot topic, we ourselves are gun owners and exersise our rights as american citizens to own these. My husband even has a "concealed carry" permit, in todays day and age it would be UN-WISE in my honest opinion NOT to have one for your own personal proptection. I think of it as a option there if its ever needed. Heres something to ponder: if ANY of those people that day WAS carrying a concealed gun for protection, do you think something differently would have happened? Just sayin. Besides, you take guns away from everyone, there will still be people who will find them no matter what and then it winds up being a bigger mess without those who wouldnt mornally be able to protect themselves freely. Its a right to bear arms and Im glad thath as not been taken away. We have a son and he will learn to use one once older and he will be taught all about them and educated. Ours are locked away in a padded safe, where they belong in this household. I have been personally contimplentating taking gun lessons myself that way in a event that {god willing will never happen} of need I would know what to do and HOW to use one.
I agree! Now is not the time to be silent!
I posted on my blog a post about other blogger's posts about the children and also ways to help:
http://christinadesignsart.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/the-tragedy-in-newton-ct/
Great post, Shane! I agree 100%. I am related to a gun nut and, although I enjoy going to the range and shooting on a Saturday, there's no reason to have assault rifles in a personal collection. If you really feel the need to shoot an assault rifle, rent it from your range. These guns should not be easily accessible to people will ill intent.
you bring up some very good points. I don't know what the right answer is.... but I read that there was a similar incident that happened in China... a mentally ill person in a school full of young kids. the difference is that since he wasn't able to get a gun, he used a knife. and although several people were injured, no one died.
I haven't confirmed whether this story is true or not, but I know that I'd rather have a scar on my baby's face than have to go to her funeral. just something to add to your debate.
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