In the wake of the Orlando shootings Sen. Chris Murphy took the floor and led an impressive 15-hour filibuster in hopes to prompt new gun regulation. He got what he wanted – sort of. Murphy left the floor with four propositions to vote on. One of which was his, one from his fellow Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and two from the Republican Party. But four meager proposals, two of which are not feasible to execute, are not what this country needs.
Since the creation of the Second Amendment, which reads “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” Americans have been spouting their conservative ideals for all to hear.
This was written in a time when the best you could hope for was a pistol that did not jam and a rifle that was accurate up to 10 feet in any direction of where you were aiming. And let’s not even talk about how long it took to reload. Swords were more effective than any mechanized weapon excluding the cannon, but you didn’t see many frontiersmen dragging cannons around to fight redcoats. One man with a gun could kill maybe three people before someone stopped him if he had the high ground and was shooting into a crowd. Nowadays, you can just hold the trigger down and hope for the best and you can take more lives at once than any Revolutionist could think of.
Technology has raced laps around the dusty laws that control the gun debate. In a country less than 300 years old, our laws are still surprisingly stuck in the past. How hard is it to deny weapon sales to people that actively pose a threat to the safety of Americans?
In my opinion, it’s not. So let’s take a look at the flaws in the active bills submitted for voting:
California Sen. Feinstein's bill would ban people on the terror watch lists from being able to purchase guns. Not a big advancement, but it’s a small step forward considering the Orlando shooter had been investigated by the FBI twice before. Republicans argue that this will infringe on the rights of those wrongly placed on the terror lists. Oh boy, I do not think words can describe how backwards this is to me. If a person gets put on a watch list, they obviously did something shocking enough to be added to the list. If you wouldn’t let them get on a plane why on earth would you let them purchase an assault rifle? And if the investigation is closed, then they get taken off the list and then this person can go buy a gun if they really want to.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn is proposing a 72-hour waiting period for purchases so that the government can do background checks. I don’t know if anyone has been to a VA hospital, or heck, even the DMV, but the government is not going to get anything done in three days. That’s not even enough time for a credit check. The NRA supports this plan, because it’s absolutely impossible to implement, which means they get to keep their political sway and guns sales high.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s bill would create a notification system to let law enforcement know if someone on the terror watch list tried to buy a gun. This brings me back to my previous point: Nothing in government gets done in a timely fashion. If a suspected terrorist did try to buy a gun, the proposal would not stop said person from buying the gun, and then the law enforcement officers have to track them down and that could be too late to prevent another shooting.
Murphy’s plan, perhaps the most compromising of the four, would extend the background check process to the sales of all firearms. This does not sound like much, and admittedly it is not. But considering our current policy, it seems like something that should have been done long ago. Currently, anyone can walk into a gun show or buy a gun online without any background check whatsoever. For a few hundred dollars, your friendly neighborhood ex-felon could purchase a gun with just a few white lies.
We might ask ourselves why so many mass shootings are allowed to happen in America, but it seems obvious when the hefty majority of our country’s governing body is unwilling to even think about passing Sen. Murphy’s plan. Now, my personal opinion is that no one needs a gun, so passing strict regulations on being able to obtain one seems like no big deal, but that is coming from a person who has never owned a gun and feels relatively secure walking down the street in the crime-ridden city I call home.
When the votes come in next week about these minuscule changes to gun control, know that the blood of every gun victim is on the hands of our elected representatives, and in turn, you, for letting them get away with it. This country will never ban the sale of firearms, and I am not saying it should. But until every person who slaps a wad of cash down on a counter with the intention of murdering another human being is stopped from obtaining the means to do so, we have a long way to go when it comes to policy reform.
