It is only February, and already we’ve had a staggeringly high number of mass shootings in 2018. We’ve lost a number of people, so many of them being children, that I no longer flinch or gasp when I get that CNN notification. Since Sandy Hook, the Pulse nightclub shooting, and the Las Vegas massacre, it’s no longer shocking.
So where is the problem? Is it the people that commit the crimes? Yes, without a doubt, but there is an even larger issue, and that’s the guns. AR-15s seem to be the weapon of choice for shooters these days. Guns that are perfectly legal for the average person to get.
An AR-15 was used in the most recent school shooting by the gunman, Nikolas Cruz. He is responsible for the death of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He went in with clear intentions, training from a white supremacist group, and killed 14 students and three faculty members.
The worst thing about all this? He was legally able to purchase the guns he used even though he had shown clear signs of being a danger to others. He had been expelled from the very same high school he shot up, reports say he’d been abusive to his ex-girlfriend, and police have been called to his home multiple times in the past. Cruz was clearly a disturbed individual, and this shooting could have been prevented.
Yet, he was able to buy an AR-15.
These weapons are semi-automatic that fire 3,251 feet per second and are able to deliver 1,300-foot-pounds of kinetic energy. Basically, if someone is in the pathway of one of these bullets, their flesh is all but obliterated from the impact. These guns are the civilian version of an M16 (which is a fully automatic rifle) and designed to cause as much pain and suffering as possible. As reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, back in June 2016, it only took columnist Helen Ubiñas seven minutes to buy an AR-15 from a licensed gun shop.
The constitution says that we, as United States citizens, have the right to bear arms. The NRA uses this as their biggest fight in Congress (as well as their money as they donated millions of dollars to members of Congress) so that they may keep their rights.
Here’s the thing, however; the Founding Fathers had no idea where guns would be in 2018. They didn’t know that these weapons would end up having so much power and become the preferred weapons of mass shooters. If they could see the state America has become, do you really think that they would let the general public be able to access these kinds of weapons?
Yes, it’s a person that committed these crimes. It’s a person that made the conscious decision to go into that school, to kill people, the same as every other mass shooting that has happened in America. Guns have just made it so much easier.
What we need is regulation on these weapons. Automatic and semiautomatics shouldn’t be allowed to be purchased by the general public. They should be reserved for the military and law enforcement. Other weapons should be illegal for those with a violent past or an extreme mental illness to be able to gain access to.
Sending out thoughts and prayers to people is doing nothing. Something has to be done to make this all stop. We need to make the pain end and keep people alive. Praying for someone after they’ve died is all well and good but if nothing is done to prevent it from happening again then it’s like people don’t actually care at all.
By not changing America’s gun laws, it’s like the GOP and the NRA is okay with the death of children. They’re okay with it because at least they get to keep their precious guns.