As we all are sadly aware by now, 64 year old Steven Paddock killed 59 and injured 515 people in the largest mass shooting in American history on Sunday night during the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas Nevada. Currently there is no known motive. Paddock was a regular white male, retired accountant who brought up no suspicions when purchasing multiple guns at once in a north Las Vegas gun store.
Yet just because Paddock seemed to be a normal guy, raising no red flags the entire scenario is deemed as simply an unfortunate event and something that is completely out of our hands. However had a few minor details in the story been changed there would have been a massive change in opinion across the U.S. in terms of what should be done about this horrible act of terrorism.
If Paddock was muslim or had not been from the U.S. in general, people would be up in arms about this. There would be meetings, press conferences, people on phones, walls being built, travel bans being implemented, discussions about what we the U.S. can do to ensure that something like this never happens again, Trump and the rest of his administration would be politicizing the heck out of this but since it was an American, that’s it. He killed some people, hurt hundreds more, he got the guns legally though and passed all our tests and was able to manipulate these guns and soup them up to military grade but that raises no eyebrows in Washington, because he was a regular white American citizen.
Automatic and semi-automatic weapons are legal in the U.S. however, it goes without saying that these weapons are a little much for “self defense”. These weapons are designed and have been used in countless mass shootings in the U.S. to kill large amounts of people in a short amount of time, yet here some of us are, the minority for some odd reason, asking why are these guns still legal? And if they are going to be legal why do you need to have more than one let alone 10?
The U.S. has entered a vicious cycle where mass shootings barely raise an eyebrow anymore. There is a shooting, we pray for that city, mourn for a day, a week whatever, it gets talked about in the news for awhile until the reports fade away and before we know it we have already forgotten about it and done nothing about it.
This was the 273rd mass shooting in the United States in 2017 alone, yet according to the U.S. press secretary now is not time for debate. Then when would a more appropriate time be? When the next mass shooting happens? Will their lost lives be valuable enough to finally buckle down and have a real conversation about gun control?
Thoughts and prayers from President Trump who rolled back some of Obama’s attempts at tightening gun control are insufficient. Thoughts and prayers from the senators who voted against a bill that would close loopholes allowing people to buy guns without background checks are insufficient. Together with the NRA who also sends their insufficient condolences are not only irrelevant in the fight to ensure this never happens again but accomplices to Steven Paddock in murdering 59 innocent human beings.
I read a Facebook post today that perfectly sums up my thoughts on this matter. “But, don’t worry about it…by next Monday we will forget about this and move on with our lives. Instead, we can focus on non-violent protests of police brutality, transgender person’s bathroom habits, limiting those sinning gays from getting married and adopting children, and deporting those horrible illegal immigrants who do the jobs that American’s won’t. Gun control doesn’t matter…until it’s your family member or friend that is shot and killed.” – Dr. Tim Delgado