It was disheartening enough to see the words “largest mass shooting in U.S. history” when the gunman in Orlando struck back in 2016, and now hardly a year later Stephan Paddock managed to top it this past week in Las Vegas. Mass shooting are practically a trend in the United States because of how frequently they occur, especially as of late. Yet, nobody wants to talk about taking preventive measures.
The debate over gun control is still far from a resolution, and to top it off the discussion over it has remained mute since the tragedy occurred. Some people say we should not talk about gun control out of respect for the victims and their families; they say it is wrong to politicize a tragedy. While the victims certainly should be on the forefront of everyone’s mind, so should a course of action so that no one else dies so senselessly. It is not any more respectful for the media to waste its time trying to identify the shooters motives. What matters is what happened could have been avoided had he not had access to the weapons he did. No one needs 47 guns.
People have argued “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” which is not the point. Surely, if a person is determined to kill they will do so with their bare hands if that is what it takes, but at least then they will not be able to kill as many. Guns don’t kill people, but they do make killing a whole lot easier. Religion, politics, and plain old mental illness are what leads people to do such horrible things, and unfortunately, they will never not exist. There will always be a motive, what there should not be is such easy access to firearms.
In situations like 9/11, people immediately jump into action so that it is not re-lived, but in instances like what happened in Las Vegas, people won’t even call it what it is which is terrorism. Paddock was white so we don’t acknowledge him for what he really was, because under the logic of an unacceptable amount of Americans that would mean all white people are terrorists, only we know this is not true. However, saying so would force people to recognize that the same goes for other races. Guns don’t kill people; crazy people kill people, and if we were to have stricter gun laws they would less successful.