On February 14, 2018, 17 people at Marjory Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, were brutally murdered as a result of yet another school shooting in America. In the theme of post events, this of course reignited a national (almost international) discussion questioning whether these tragedies occur as a result of mental health or too much access to firearms. Well, the answer is both.
I'll be honest with you: I wasn't sure what the correct solution would be before. With all the senseless killings that have happened in my lifetime, I quickly became desensitized to the issue. I knew that some kind of reform needed to happen, but I was unsure of what would be the best solution to accommodate both the human right to not be mowed down in school while still allowing people to have guns.
Listen, I don't think there should be a complete gun ban, but if we continue on this route, then what else will prevent these tragedies? I understand that the right to bear arms is a constitutional right allocated to us by the forefathers, but then again, so is the third amendment which prevents troops from entering our houses without permission. The Bill of Rights was written in the 18th century when most weapons had to be reloaded after each shot. Times have changed, people.
A few arguments against gun control include training teachers to use guns, saying criminals don't follow laws, and (the "what if?" which wasn't meant to be taken seriously) banning cars. First of all, the job of a teacher is to TEACH. Sure, there are some great teachers out there who would gladly take a bullet if it meant protecting their students (as some recent victims are now known for), but focusing on what to do in the event of a shooting is missing the point entirely. Installations like Lock Bloks are great, but in the event of a threat, teachers may be more focused on hiding the students rather than whipping out a firearm.
Yes, I'm sure there will always be bad people in the world, but that doesn't mean we should all sit in underground bunkers instead of being able to live our damn lives. The United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and Germany have all experienced mass shootings in the PAST, which they then took action on in the form of gun control. They have still experienced tragedies at the hands of evil people, but at a much lower rate than America's. As for the car "argument" saying they might as well be banned too so as to prevent crashes, a car's main function is to get you from one destination to the next. A gun's purpose is to hit something as well as harm or kill in the cases of living creatures.
As I'm writing this article, it has been about a week since the shooting, and we've spent this prime reform time arguing and tearing each other down. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas have been incredibly outspoken during this time and petitioning their government officials to make a difference, yet on February 21, the Flordia House of Representatives rejected a proposed ban on semiautomatic weapons and decreed that pornography is a public health crisis. It boggles my mind that our officials are so focused on topics that fall the farthest from the issue at hand. It wasn't pornography that led families and friends to prematurely bury their loved ones as a result of last week's events.
I personally believe that gun control would be the solution that enacts a quicker result, but I'm not blind to the fact that there have been shooters who acted out IN PART due to a mental illness, but that does not excuse their actions. According to the American Psychiatric Association, "The overall contribution of people with serious mental illness to violent crimes is only about 3%. When these crimes are examined in detail, an even smaller percentage of them are found to involve firearms." There are people that need help for a mental illness, and we should absolutely be giving it to them and destroying dangerous stigmas about it.
People are dying and thoughts and prayers only go so far. If we are to make sure this never happens again, then we need to enact gun control AND mental health reform. Our country is still too concerned about arguing with each other on the most effective solution. The sooner we realize we can try more than one proposition, the sooner we can all be safe and be a bit prouder of our country's image.