Ever since I can remember, deer hunting season has been an exciting time for my family. My dad and brothers would go up-north with my uncles and cousins to see who lucky the ones this year would be to shoot a six-pointer buck. The trucks would be filled with blaze-orange and camouflage gear, coolers and coffee thermals. It was always exciting to get the call when my dad or brothers, “got one!” When they would come home from their hunting trips, the first thing my dad would do was take his and my brother’s shotguns to his safe and lock them up. My dad has always been very adamant about gun safety and made sure the safeties were on and the guns were locked away.
Currently gun violence is one of the top social and political issues, especially after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, which took seventeen lives in Florida this past February. According to a CNN report, there have been seventeen school shootings in 2018 alone and it’s only the beginning of April.
Gun violence is a serious issue that should not to be swept under the rug anymore.
There have been an infinite number of articles, news segments, tweets, and even memes regarding the topic of gun violence spewing from both sides of the political spectrum. We have heard opinions from the far left suggesting abolishing the Second Amendment as whole, and from the far right insisting that more guns should be implemented in schools to stop shooting, such as arming teachers. To me, both ideas are incredibly ludicrous.
Obviously not every liberal wants our constitutional right to bear arms to be taken away and not every conservative wants teachers to be armed with guns. Though they seem like quite extreme ideas, they stem from sensible thoughts. Many liberals believe that gun laws and regulations for purchasing a gun should be much stricter. Some of these regulations would include background checks, raising the age to 21 to purchase and limiting the sales of military assault weapons to civilians. Conservative thoughts would include tightening up some regulations but to a fair extent and that arming more people would lessen the gun violence.
Yes, I do come from a blue-collar, middle class, gun-owning family, but I agree with select liberal viewpoints that gun laws and regulations should be stricter. Especially, how military-grade weapons should not be in the hands of civilians.
I want my dad, and other safe gun-owners, to keep their shotguns for game. However, I do not want mentally unstable 18-year-olds to have to capability to purchase an assault rifle.
I commend and applaud the students of Stoneman Douglas High School and how they took a terrible moment in their lives and turned into a national movement for change. I hope that their voices and the voices that joined them are never silenced, and more so, I hope that lawmakers hear them and create stricter gun laws and regulations.
For more information about the topic of gun violence and if you would like to help support the initiative created by the Stoneman Douglas students check out https://marchforourlives.com/.
CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/us/school-shootings-2018-list-trnd/index.html