Gun Control: Do NOT Fire Away When teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their students at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 they struck fear into the hearts of parents and schoolchildren nationwide. By the time the pair committed suicide, 12 of their classmates and one teacher lay dead. It was, at the time, the deadliest school shooting in American history, creating a cloud of fear that hung-over schools around the country. But the massacre did not result in changes to America's gun control policies. A month after the shooting, the Senate narrowly passed a bill requiring background checks for firearm sales at gun shows, with Vice President Al Gore casting the deciding vote. The bill, which also required child
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But the case made for that "something" is almost entirely based on emotion, not reason. The hard truth is that none of the proposals that politicians and commentators have made -- about guns, mental health, broken homes, cultural failings, violence in mass media, and so on -- could have prevented this awful crime or any other similar crime yet to take place. No law can make the murderously insane sane or remove the ability to destroy innocent life from the hands of every mentally ill American. The problem, which is the actual guns that are sold to the public, is beyond these issues and from within the right to bear arms. There is a problem that clearly goes well beyond mass shootings. The mass shootings get the headlines but we’re losing dozens of lives to gunshots every day. And those don’t get the attention that mass shootings do. Americans are very good at excuse making. That is, when they hear of, let’s say the Newtown shooting, they think, ‘Well, we heard the facts of that one. He was mentally disturbed and well, gee, you know, not much could be done to prevent that.’ Or we when hear about the theater shooting in Alabama, they say, ‘Oh yeah, that guy was very angry and mentally disturbed. And nothing could have been done to prevent that guy from getting a gun, so there’s nothing we can do.” Or they say, ‘it’s mental illness and not the gun.’ Excuses are made but then never get around to dealing …show more content…
The numbers include everything from homicides and multiple-victim gang assaults to incidents of self-defense and accidental shootings. The organization’s records show that more than 12,600 people have been killed with guns this year, but what its numbers do not record — due to government reporting practices — is a massive hole in the data: the nearly 20,000 Americans who end their lives with a gun each year. Nor does its already high injury tally capture the full extent of the victims who continue life with debilitating wounds and crushing medical bills. It does however, mention the amount of deaths due to self-defense, which is gun advocates’ main argument, that record to about 1,500, a significantly low rate compared to deaths due to guns. With a ratio of 1.5: 8.3, excluding suicide
But the case made for that "something" is almost entirely based on emotion, not reason. The hard truth is that none of the proposals that politicians and commentators have made -- about guns, mental health, broken homes, cultural failings, violence in mass media, and so on -- could have prevented this awful crime or any other similar crime yet to take place. No law can make the murderously insane sane or remove the ability to destroy innocent life from the hands of every mentally ill American. The problem, which is the actual guns that are sold to the public, is beyond these issues and from within the right to bear arms. There is a problem that clearly goes well beyond mass shootings. The mass shootings get the headlines but we’re losing dozens of lives to gunshots every day. And those don’t get the attention that mass shootings do. Americans are very good at excuse making. That is, when they hear of, let’s say the Newtown shooting, they think, ‘Well, we heard the facts of that one. He was mentally disturbed and well, gee, you know, not much could be done to prevent that.’ Or we when hear about the theater shooting in Alabama, they say, ‘Oh yeah, that guy was very angry and mentally disturbed. And nothing could have been done to prevent that guy from getting a gun, so there’s nothing we can do.” Or they say, ‘it’s mental illness and not the gun.’ Excuses are made but then never get around to dealing …show more content…
The numbers include everything from homicides and multiple-victim gang assaults to incidents of self-defense and accidental shootings. The organization’s records show that more than 12,600 people have been killed with guns this year, but what its numbers do not record — due to government reporting practices — is a massive hole in the data: the nearly 20,000 Americans who end their lives with a gun each year. Nor does its already high injury tally capture the full extent of the victims who continue life with debilitating wounds and crushing medical bills. It does however, mention the amount of deaths due to self-defense, which is gun advocates’ main argument, that record to about 1,500, a significantly low rate compared to deaths due to guns. With a ratio of 1.5: 8.3, excluding suicide