Earlier this week, Christina Grimmie was shot and murdered at an autograph signing after a show, and a mass shooting occurred at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL. Hearing about these made me deeply upset and angry with America's gun control policy. As a result, I wrote a Facebook status about how I was angry by the amount of mass shootings that have happened, how nothing has been done about it, and how I wished for there to be change, so innocent people can stop dying at the hands of guns. I wrote a different article a few months ago about gun control, but that one was more factual-based, whereas this one will focus more on my personal experience.
That Facebook status in question blew up completely, receiving about a hundred comments. Two people that I went to high school with attacked my views completely, often bringing in completely irrelevant points, such as bringing up the Mexican cartel, bombings, and the wall in Israel. None of which I discussed in my original post about gun control. Other friends from high school came to my aid, as well as the many Australians friends I've made while studying here. I even had other Australians friending me on Facebook just to comment, like, and read the status. It was incredible to have this kind of support, especially from citizens of a country that has much stricter gun control.
Quite frankly, that stricter gun control has worked. Since a mass shooting in 1996, there have been no major mass shootings in Australia. None. How crazy is that? A place where you don't have to live in fear of being shot. Where people can't buy guns easily. Where children aren't shot in schools. Where people aren't shot in nightclubs. Where people can to go a move theatre and just focus on watching the move without being shot. What a concept. Here, they don't think too much about being killed in a mass shooting because it just doesn't happen. Before these shootings, people have asked me if I was afraid to be shot in America. I used to think that was a dumb question. Of course not, I would answer. That's not really something you think about. People would also tell me they were afriad to visit America for fear of being shot. I also thought that was kind of ridiculous. But now that I think about it, it is not so dumb or ridiculous after all. There have been far too many mass shootings in America. Australians see this media coverage, with a clear lack of mass shootings in their own country. I have grown up hearing about mass shootings my entire life. It's almost normal. It's disgusting that it could be considered normal, but it happens often enough that we don't do anything about it. You never think a shooting will happen to you, but it has to happen to someone, so why not you? It never happened in the area I grew up, so it wouldn't happen to me or anyone I knew. But we can't ignore these shootings and brush them off, like oh damn that sucks, people died again, but oh, what can you do about it? We have to be educated and do something about it.
On my post, the pro-gun control supporters like myself posted multiple articles with statistics, case studies, videos, etc. all talking about why gun control could work and is needed. The pro-gun supporters posted nothing, except for an article discussing a militia in terms of the draft, citing it as a militia to rise up against the government. He did not use the definition of a militia as outlined by the second amendment, which he clung so desperately to. This is the main thing that irks me when talking about gun control. Pro-gun supporters blatantly ignore statistics and case studies. They ignore the fact that the solution of fighting guns with more guns doesn't work. They provide no other valid solutions for gun control. They change the topic, bringing up other issues. Okay, well, shootings happen yeah, but the guns are coming from the Mexican cartel and the cartel is raping women and the cartel is bringing illegals over and on and on. Talking about other issues is a strategy to sidestep the actual argument. It does not matter how much you know about another topic like this, it is simply not relevant to gun control and cannot be brought into a gun control discussion. These other topics are issues too, but not the issue we are discussing at the moment.
They focus on the small facts, blowing them out of proportion. People that commit mass shootings have mental disorders. Yes, some of them do, but most of them are not done by people with mental disorders. Even if they were, what do you propose we do? Round up all of the people with mental disorders, and do what exactly? Many people with mental disorders are highly functioning individuals. As a student of psychology, it really angers me when people misunderstand and misrepresent psychological disorders. One of the people who commented on my post claimed that someone who likes killing people has to have a mental problem and talked on about this for a few comments before I stepped in. No, I carefully explained, in order to have a mental disorder, you must meet the criteria for a specific disorder with specific criteria detailed in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). "I like killing people" does not equate to a mental disorder. This could tie into one certainly, but that alone is not enough to constitute a mental disorder diagnosis. Also, they say that most of the shootings that have occurred have been done by guns acquired illegally. This is just untrue. Some of them have been yes, but the majority of them have been committed by guns acquired legally. The people arguing against me claimed I was ignorant about laws and guns in general, while at the same time, they stated these incorrect facts.
The point that the pro-gun supporters argued that angered me the most was about the type of guns. Someone on the pro-gun side argued that gun control would control what types of guns people would be able to have. Someone on the pro-gun control side asked why someone would need an assault rifle. What use would it be to the average citizen? The first person ignored this question until prompted a few more times. To rise up against an oppressive government, he finally answered. A country should fear its citizens, not the other way around, he argued. This was baffling to me. This is not what government should be built on. Nobody should fear one another. This is the basis of governments gone wrong, i.e., the Nazis. We should not fear our government and we should not have guns just to "beat the man" aka the government. One of the Australians brought up how ridiculous and illogical this argument was. There should be mutual respect between a nation and its citizens, not fear. If we say that we agree that there should be mutual fear instead of mutual respect between a government and its governed, it would not be physically possible for the average man to rise up against the government with a gun. The American military is extremely powerful and could not be squandered by this. So, basically, we need assault rifles to combat our own government and extremely powerful military, who are the ones letting you have these guns in the first place, right? Okay, this really doesn't make any sense.
Another argument is the we need more good guys with guns to stop the bad guys. Again, this has been proven that it doesn't work. Very few mass shootings have actually been stopped by a regular citizen with a gun. None have been stopped by a regular citizen before the attacker committed the crime. Stop arguing points that have no basis. You cannot continue to argue these points when all of the evidence is stacked up against it. Frankly, it is ridiculous. Face the fact that you like your guns and don't want them being taken away. It is completely understandable to like something and not want it taken away. Pro-gun supporters, if you can find a way to keep all of your guns and prevent mass shootings, then I am more than happy to let you have your guns. Tell me, what's your solution? Oh wait, that's the thing, you don't have one, so get off your high horse. This was also asked of one of the pro-gun supporters arguing on my Facebook status. What other solutions do you propose? He ignored this question, never provided one. Just argued more and more ridiculously, throwing memes into the bunch. This is what gets to me. You can criticize somebody else's solution and huff and ho all about your second amendment rights being violated, but you come up with no better solution yourself. This is just unjust and doesn't make any sense.
I think back to high school, when I was a member of the Junior State of America (JSA), a club which had organized and well-regulate debates. Each debate was regulated with a moderator who kept time and order. Each person was given a set amount of time to debate a side, and they could not go over or start yelling at people, or do anything disorderly. I think how if these debates were conducted with JSA, how much smoother they would go. How people would not just start spitting out random information, yelling their opinions with no factual basis, or showing people stupid memes because that would not win them the debate. In online debates where people can say whatever they want in all caps and think they have won without efficiently and effectively backing up their claims. In JSA, they would not win the debate with these tactics, so why should they "win" online?
Mass shootings are serious issue in America, and something needs to be done about it. The problem cannot be ignored any further.
As I mentioned earlier how a number of articles and videos were cited in the argument, so here they are.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/4-pro-gu...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns...
http://www.bustle.com/articles/166341-11-infograph...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-powers/blaming...
https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/videos/10154000...
http://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/austr...
http://new.www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-weisser/fbi...
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/ore...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/...
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/96...
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/ban-assault-weapo...
http://www.cfr.org/arms-industries-and-trade/strat...
This is the one presented by the opposing side.
