Another school shooting took place on Friday, resulting in 17 deaths and several injuries.
The fact that I have to say “another” to begin that sentence is just pathetic.
There have been 238 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths with 300+ more injured since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, according to the New York Times. That means almost 140 lives were taken in less than six years, and this only covers shootings that took place at a school.
If we want to bring up all mass shootings, those numbers are even more embarrassing. According to CNN, seven of the top 10 deadliest mass shootings in US history took place after 2007, beginning with the Virginia Tech tragedy, which is ranked third deadliest with 32 casualties. Three of the top five deadliest shootings have taken place over the last 20 months; just those three incidents resulted in 133 lives taken.
When will the American government decide that enough is enough and change the gun laws? I thought that time was after a semi-automatic rifle took the lives of innocent elementary school children in Connecticut six years ago, yet here we are. Seventeen more people are dead thanks to another semi-automatic rifle- the same weapon used during mass shootings in Las Vegas, Orlando and Sutherland Springs, TX- but the blame is put on the mentally ill shooter once again.
What Republicans and Liberals alike don’t get is that both the gun and the person are contributing factors to these tragedies. Yes, many Americans suffer some sort of mental illness, which can mean anything from having post-traumatic stress disorder to receiving periodical panic attacks. The issue is that these illnesses aren’t easy to diagnose. In 2016, a Florida mental health agency examined Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and decided not to hospitalize him.
Yes, there is a chance that the shooter was mentally ill. However, if a person with a mental health illness can go out and legally purchase an AR-15 without an issue, what does that say about our gun laws?
Lately, it seems as if every mass shooter with a semi-automatic has a mental illness, is connected to ISIS or has some other ridiculous reason attached to them. It’s the same old song and dance again, and people are tired of sitting back and watching it happen. They’re calling for a change to the Second Amendment.
Now, I don’t believe the right to bear arms should be completely taken away. With the amount of gun collectors, war memorabilia etc. this law is set in stone forever. However, it definitely needs to be changed or restricted.
The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, before the Civil War took place. Back then, there were no guns that could kill 20+ people with the pull of a trigger. This is a severely outdated law, and these mass shootings will continue if something isn’t done to change it.
Americans need to realize what they can and can’t control. A person growing mentally ill, for whatever reason it may be, is uncontrollable. However, we can control whether this person has the ability to purchase a deadly rifle. It’s an obvious decision; let’s make the right one before this happens again.
Photo courtesy of Las Vegas Police
