It seems that every week comes new horror. The fact of the matter is that we now have to use qualifiers to talk about massacres that occurred even in the past year, or you won’t know if I’m referring to 50 people dying in a nightclub in Orlando, 12 police officers being shot by a sniper in Dallas, or the husband-wife team who killed fourteen people at a holiday party in San Bernardino. Our flags are nearly never flying at full height, so it hardly strikes us now when they are at half-staff. National uproar about tragic, horrific deaths has become status quo, but this national uproar has yet to change a thing.
People against gun violence prevention legislation argue that terrorists and criminals will find a way to attack no matter if they can get guns or not. They claim that the Second Amendment leaves no room for gun violence prevention legislation. They fear that with this legislation, law-abiding citizens will lose their access to guns, or even have their guns “taken away.”
But that is not what is being argued in Congress. Advocates of gun violence prevention legislation are advocating just that: ways to reduce gun violence. This means getting rid of sites like ArmsList, which facilitate the sales of guns from one civilian to another- set up a meeting in a parking lot, exchange cash, and then drive away with a gun, no background check needed. It means extending common sense to background check procedures, addressing issues like the concern that people who have been designated as dangerous enough to warrant a “no fly” label can still buy guns with no impediments. None of this legislation goes against the Second Amendment for multiple reasons, but most simply this: the Second Amendment doesn’t say that everyone should be able to get a gun, it says that anyone should.
By not passing gun violence prevention, our country has let us down. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to even hold a vote about gun control, despite demands for a vote and even a sit-in staged in the Capitol building. The sit-in ended, with no vote. And here we are months later, and still no vote. There have been many, many more shootings since then, and still no vote.
We have to do more than expect better from our country. We need to stand and demand from Congress “how dare we say that we’ll just give this a moment and then we’re going to go on to business as usual” (Congresswoman Louise Slaughter). How dare we not pass legislation preventing this violence. How dare we not even give this legislation a chance. How dare we let this keep on happening. How dare we.
