Human Life vs Gun Rights
Human Life vs Gun Rights
Logically, there should be no contest!
Yesterday there was another massacre in an elementary school in the United States.
After having shot his own grandmother, 18 year old Salvador Ramos walked into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with an assault rifle AR-15. He began shooting anyone in his path and eventually barricaded himself in a classroom where he opened fire on children and teachers. The responding police and border agents were able to shoot & kill the gunman, eliminating further threat to the children & staff. But only after 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered, with more left injured.
This on the heals of the Buffalo shooting that left 10 people dead and the shooting at a Taiwanese church in California that left 1 dead. It is becoming a uniquely American occurrence, with very little being done to curb gun violence, at the expense of human lives. At the expense of minority communities, children, and grandparents. Which leaves many in the US and the rest of the world questioning why supposed gun “rights” are more precious to the people of the US and to its Congress than are the lives of our children. Why in God’s name does this continue?
At this point, every person in Congress that has refused to further gun control should be held accountable for every life taken with a gun. Every owner of a gun shop should be held accountable for any lives taken with a gun purchased from them, without a proper background check and/or waiting period. Every gun owner who refuses to keep their guns locked away from their children, or anyone else, should be held accountable for the lives taken with that gun. At some point we have to start holding more people than just the shooter accountable! Otherwise these massacres, these murders, well, they become government sanctioned acts. Think about that for a moment. They are all complicit. *If you have a better solution, I’d love to hear it. That’s all any of us want, is a REAL solution. I realize my above statement comes from frustration and raw emotion. SO, let’s work together to fix this and stop sweeping it under the rug!
The solution is gun control by way of stricter gun laws. There is nothing else that will get the acts under control. Arming teachers with guns isn’t the solution. Armed guards at our schools isn’t the solution. The schools already have security guards, anything more is simply a police state covering up poor legislation. The government must take control of who can get their hands on a gun, and what kind of gun and how many guns those people can have. Period. I know that steps on a lot of right wing toes out there who still think any gun control is stripping them of their rights. Too bad! I’d rather strip you of your rights to own a military grade assault rifle AR-15 than to see anymore children die! And if you’re still arguing your point after seeing what these rifles do in the wrong hands, then you aren’t just part of the problem, you are the problem.
So please contact your representative in Congress and urge them to immediately begin to work on legislation that will bring about stricter gun laws and help curb gun violence in our country. In elections to come, vote out those representatives who actively block gun legislation. It is not about voting along party lines, or gun rights, it’s about preserving human lives. Do the right thing!
Ok ok, I see your point. Those we typically deem as criminals most likely aren’t getting their guns by legal means. And in bigger cities such as Chicago where there is a lot of gun violence and gang violence, I’m sure they aren’t going to their local gun shop and filling out paperwork and waiting the allotted time.
But generally speaking, those who commit mass shootings at schools and/or public spaces, rarely turn out to be criminals in the sense in which you speak. They are generally seen as “normal” to those around them. They generally don’t have prior criminal records. They generally get their guns via legal means or via someone close to them (ie parents) who got their guns by legal means. So, we can’t assume everyone getting their guns by legal means is doing so with good intent.
So, my question to you is this.... if you don’t believe stricter gun laws would work in the USA (though it works in other countries) what do you think we can do to curb our obvious gun violence issue?
I would respectfully point out that a 2016 Obama administration study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics examined how prison inmates obtained the firearms they used during crimes — and the results weren’t surprising. The study found that only about 10.1% obtained their firearms through a retail source. The vast majority of criminals obtained their firearms through other means, including:
- Illegal underground sales
- Bought, borrowed, traded, or rented from friends or family
- Gifts
- Purchased by another individual for them
- Theft
- From their victims
- From the scene of a crime
Criminals who go through illegal avenues to obtain firearms aren't going to submit to background checks while doing so. Ultimately, only law-abiding citizens would be impacted by expanded background checks. As a lifelong resident of Chicago (a city with some of the strictest gun control laws, and highest gun violence in the nation) I can tell you from experience that gun control legislation is useless.