On Sunday as I drove home to San Antonio from the Austin airport, I felt a ping on my phone and read the New York Times headline: Mass Shooting Takes Place in San Antonio. I quickly followed the link to check out the details that hadn’t been released, concerned about my own church and about my friends’ perspective churches. Sutherland Springs is about 45 minutes from where I live, lies between two towns I know very well, and many people I know firsthand had loved ones affected. This wasn’t like any other mass shooting. This one was personal and this one brought a new perspective to gun control.
Due to the proximity of this event to my hometown, I’ve been keeping up to date on the information of this original story, eager to understand as much as I possibly can. One major angle of this story is how citizens see this event as a call for more guns, not less. The shooter on Sunday had been shot by a neighbor with his own personal gun, a cause for obvious celebration. Many Texans attribute the end of the shooting to the local hero, which otherwise could have resulted in more casualties. However, this fact shouldn’t change the call for stricter gun control and exemplifies the fact that it’s needed in my opinion.
In explaining the town’s view of guns, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackit said to the New York Times, “But guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” I loved reading this because it’s so simple and so true. But, this doesn’t mean everyone should have a gun and this surely doesn’t mean we should loosen gun control. The people who commit mass murders often display signs of violence beforehand, and though they might find a way to commit violence without a gun, having one makes it that much easier. In the call for gun control, politicians are calling for stricter enforcement so those who shouldn’t have guns won’t. The call for gun control won’t affect a citizen’s right to own a gun for self-defense unless there is valued reason that it could be used in a dangerous way, many times displayed before a mass murderer commits their crime after failed enforcement of gun control. The conversation of gun control needs to shift to focus on the people behind the guns rather than the guns themselves.
Gun control laws won’t take away your rights and it’s more important now than ever to realize and fight for the safety we all crave.