Here I am, again, struggling with what to say after yet another mass shooting in this country. Since I wrote about the horrific mass-murder at the Pulse Nightclub in June of 2016, there have been 521 mass shootings. In four-hundred-something days, 585 people have been killed and 2,156 have been injured in mass shootings.
I am ashamed. We all should be.
Five hundred eighty five families have been violently, horrifically changed. Thousands of others have lost friends, coworkers, teachers, members of their community. Two women from my town died in Las Vegas on Sunday. One has three young children who will never hug their mother again.
I don’t understand how anyone can look into the faces of those who lost family and friends to gun violence and say, “Hey, bad guys will always find a way.” Yeah, but maybe we shouldn’t make it so easy for them. We don’t get to bring more than 4 ounces of liquid on a plane. No Swiss Army Knives, either. Will someone still try to do something horrible on a plane? Probably. But it’s harder now.
It should be harder to get a gun. Period. Because it WILL save lives.
It makes me sad that I know people will leave comments telling me common sense gun regulations won’t solve anything. Well, doing nothing isn’t solving anything, either. So why not try something?? Why doesn’t everyone want to try something???
We can’t let these deaths be in vain. We have to stop making excuses and do something. We need to demand it.
We’re running out of time.
Toni says:
Well said!
JS says:
Incredibly well put. Thank you.
Miriam says:
Everything you said – so true. I contacted my local representative last night pleading for change. Don’t know if it will do anything but is worth a shot to let my voice be heard.
Heather says:
Good!!! It’s their job to listen to us!!!
Elizabeth says:
We’ve tried nothing – we need to try something!
Leah says:
1000% agree. Thank you for speaking your mind on this.
Erica says:
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I also contacted my local representative who voted against stricter gun laws. I want to do more though.
Danielle says:
I cannot for the life of me understand how some Americans can see the stats from other countries and not conclude that gun control works. Imagine for a second if the cowards who attacked the borough market in London had had access to automatic weapons. Unfortunately you can’t always stop the crazy but you can at least mitigate the damage by making it harder to get these unnecessary weapons. What is their purpose anyway? You can’t tell me that Joe who hunts needs that kind of fire power to take down a deer. I just don’t understand and I’d love to hear a logical rational reason for any member of the public needing to own a weapon like that. What exactly are you protecting yourself from?
Heather says:
I honestly don’t know.
GreenInOC says:
Stating that “nothing” is done after these horrific acts is a fallacy. In fact, a Harvard research paper reports that A LOT gets done…
“A mass shooting increases the number of enacted laws that loosen gun restrictions by 75 percent in states with Republican-controlled legislatures.”
Maybe the problem is those of us who want reasonable gun restrictions are operating under this falsehood which allows us to assume it can’t get worse, when in fact it’s spiraling.
Read this at your own peril everyone, it’s dumbfounding: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/more-killings-more-guns/541905/?google_editors_picks=true
Chris says:
Not only do I completely agree with you Heather, just look at Australia. It took ONE, count it ONE event similar to this to get gun control there. Not baby step reform, but actual reform. The short version: The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. 35 people were killed and 23 wounded when the gunman opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two semi-automatic rifles. … This was necessary because the Australian Constitution does not give the Commonwealth power to enact gun laws.
It sickens me that we won’t do anything.
Laura says:
Yes, I was going to mention Australia too. Great example of positive change that protects lives.
Megan says:
It has been 21 years since our last mass shooting here in Australia. That proves that gun reform works. Within weeks of the Port Arthur massacre here, laws were changed.
The fact that my kids know no different is awesome in my opinion. It has been difficult to shield them from all the Las Vegas news coverage, but they are so confused. They don’t understand why or how someone even has a gun. As far as they are aware, only farmers have guns so they can shoot injured livestock and pests on their property.
I hope change can happen for you guys before it’s too late. xx
Erika says:
What drives me nuts is the argument “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. If you set a gun down and tell it to shoot someone, it won’t. blahblahblah…”
You can say the same things about bombs. Should we be able to own bombs because they can’t kill someone without someone setting them off? Didn’t think so.
Megan says:
Right? The bad guys are going to find a way to make nukes anyway, so why even bother regulating uranium!
Jeannie says:
Port Arthur was not the only gun massacre here in Australia prior to the introduction of gun control laws. There were in fact 13 mass shootings in the 18 years before PA in 1996, but PA was the worst. Only 12 days after the PA shootings, there was bipartisan government agreement on tighter gun control laws! Thousands of guns were taken out of the community, there has not been another mass shooting since. But gun laws won’t change anything I think if Sandy Hook didn’t cause change in the US, nothing will!
Jeannie says:
The sentence above about gun laws not changing anything is sarcastic
Stacie Fields says:
I am from the UK and I am astounded by the fact any lunatic can buy a gun. In the UK on 13/03/1996. He had 4 legally held handguns. After the shooting the parents petitioned the government and gun laws were much stricter. People still hunt here and you can have hand guns if you are in a shooting club. No one has access to semi automatic weapons bar the armed forces. I can’t get my mind around the fact you can walk into a shop and buy a gun that can kill and maim so many people so quickly.
There are so many horrible naturally occurring things – cancer, hurricanes etc – without people being able to do this.
My heart hurts for you all it must be so frustrating to be dealing with such a horrific situation and the government you have. I hope this is the catalyst for change for your country and the excuses from the top stop.
Megan says:
Totally agree. It’s funny how we want to regulate everything else – like marriage, or who can serve in the army, or who can have access to birth control or a safe abortion (which, by the same gun logic we actually shouldn’t regulate since people will just find a way to do it anyway), who should be forced to stand for the national anthem…but making it harder to have access to a weapon? Naw!
Chris says:
thank you, thank you, thank you. I just can’t imagine how this guy was able to buy so many and no one realized it. There should be a database accessible by the gun shops to see what has already been purchased. Stricter gun control is absolutely necessary, when will the government realize this. I love your comparison to the restrictions for flying, hello!!, I too have friends and a co-worker who was there, one still in the hospital, they will never get over this tragedy.
Lisa F. says:
Agreed! I’ve seen officials talk about, “Well, we have to do something about hotel security. How did he get in the hotel with all those guns?” Why is it “too soon” to talk about gun legislation, but completely appropriate to discuss ways to increase hotel security?
Kyla says:
You are so right! Kudos to you to say what you feel and what so many feel knowing there are always who will stand up for guns. We’ve got to do something. Now.
Jessica says:
I don’t have anything to add, but I’ll put my comment in as 100% agreement.
Emerson says:
The American “right to bear arms” has always astounded me. Those laws were put in place when “arms” were muskets and took minutes (not seconds, not miliseconds) to load and fire. It’s absolutely insane that the average person feels they need semi automatic weapons.
And for the sake of interest, I’m going to leave this here. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/03/555309426/las-vegas-massacre-prompts-musician-to-call-for-gun-control-enough-is-enough It’s an NPR article about Caleb Keeter, the guitarist for one of the bands that was at the music festival in Vegas. People say they want to have weapons to defend themselves from maniacs that incite this kind of violence but here’s a quote from the article: “”We actually have members of our crew with CHL [concealed handgun license] licenses, and legal firearms on the bus,” Keeter said. “They were useless. We couldn’t touch them for fear the police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us.””
Legal weapons were USELESS in self defense or defense of others. WHY do you still want them around?