Addressing America’s gun violence problem starts with the Second Amendment
America has settled into a sad reality the last few years.
A deranged person with a gun causes a mass casualty situation and the nation predictably argues about gun control. Sandy Hook in 2012: 26 children and educators killed. San Bernardino in 2015: 14 dead. Pulse nightclub in 2016: 49 massacred.
We mourn, we get pissed off and then we ask our leaders to stop the madness.
Nothing changes.
Last Sunday’s shootings in Las Vegas left 59 dead and over 500 injured. Despite the staggering amount of casualties and the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, the sad political cycle begins again.
Something must be done.
Both sides of the aisle can agree on that. American citizens continue to die in an endless cycle of semi-automatic gunfire triggering another round of calls for gun control. But it feels like neither side will ever reach the middle ground.
Some people say banning guns outright would stop the senseless bloodshed. Some people say only a good guy with a gun can stop it.
There are cases of both working.
A good guy with a gun named Samuel Williams stopped two armed robbers at a Florida internet café. In the case of Las Vegas, however, a good guy with a gun could not have done much from the crowd to hit the shooter, who was reportedly in a 32nd-floor sniper’s nest.
On the other hand, Japan and Australia have both practically banned guns outright. The Japanese can legally own just air rifles and shotguns, and the process to get firearms is much more rigorous than that of America.
In 2006, Japan saw just two gun-related homicides. It was a big year when the total jumped to 22 in 2008. Unlike America, however, both Japan and Australia are island nations. It is much tougher to get guns across their borders compared to America’s. Guns move across the Mexican-American border in mass quantity – and it goes both ways.
In America, there have been 11,715 gun-related deaths and 273 mass shootings in 2017, according to Gunviolencearchive.org.
It is obvious the solution will not be simple. It will not be universally liked, and that is something we will have to accept as a society. We will not all agree on the gun rights issue because of this nation’s long-held tradition of bearing arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 with tyranny in mind. It was about giving the people of America the right to bear arms to defend themselves from the British or any other power that should try to take over. It was a time of single-shot flintlock muskets and the blunderbuss, a predecessor of the shotgun.
Times have changed. Weaponry has changed.
The change will start with the Second Amendment. Our founding fathers could not have predicted what firearms would be capable of today. As for protection against foreign nations or a takeover of the U.S. government, owning a gun will not help.
Sorry, but they have tanks, planes and bombs.
The United States has updated the constitution in the past. The nation can do so again. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear we have the political will to change the Second Amendment or pass gun control laws to stop the carnage.
But we have to try. Prayers and well wishes only go so far.
Featured illustration by Max Raign
About your last wisecrack: The U.S. needs more prayers at this time, not less, and shootings will happen because there is evil in the world. Devout Christians understand this and also understand the need to protect themselves and others from evil – hence, the need for the Second Amendment. Guns don’t kill people. Evil people kill other people. You Godless liberals will never understand that.