Within the last few years, there's been more talk about gun control than I would like. It’s not that I think that the discourse is invaluable, or that I think we should discourage people from talking about current issues and taking political stances. I actually think that this kind of dialogue and the skills that it builds are incredibly useful in today’s society. However, the events that lead to major resurgences of the gun control debate are always tragic.
The first mass shooting that I paid close attention to, and that really caused me to rethink the gun legislation in this country, was the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. Then, a few months later, the entire nation seemed to be at a standstill as we watched the events of Sandy Hook through our televisions, or for some, from the school itself. And, of course, this past week we've seen 9 more people killed by a gunman in Oregon.
Gun regulation is a tricky issue for me to sort through in my mind. I don’t think that firearm ownership should be limited to law enforcement personnel, but my knee-jerk reaction to events like the aforementioned is the opposite. It’s difficult to find a gun control method that’s effective enough to put an end to such tragedies, but that also respects citizens’ constitutionally-granted liberties. I certainly don’t think that there should be a free-for-all approach to gun control, either, and I don’t think that current statutes are effective enough to actually prevent tragedies. In fact, the recent Oregon community college shooting occurred in a designated gun-free zone. It’s clear that further steps need to be taken to limit the possibility of this continuing to happen.
As of right now, federal law requires background checks for any individual wishing to purchase a gun from a licensed retailer. This leaves open the possibility of one individual purchasing a weapon from another in a private sale. It is reasonable to assume that requiring background checks for private sales would reduce the amount of gun violence in the country, but this may not be true. Oregon passed a similar law just a couple of months ago. However, because of the chronological proximity of the law’s passage and this week’s shooting, it’s impossible to tell if this legislation should have been passed earlier, or if it’s ineffective as a whole. This also produces an accountability problem; how can state officials know that a gun has been transferred between two individuals?
If regulating the sale and transfer of guns cannot ultimately bring security, where are we left? I think that it’s important to dig deeper and look at the root of mass killings: mental illness. As the saying goes, “Guns don’t kill people – people kill people.” Though this phrase is often used as NRA propaganda, it really does strike the core of mass tragedies like Aurora, Sandy Hook, and Umpqua. A mentally sound person with a gun will not shoot and kill random people.
Even in states with rigid gun laws, people are obtaining weapons and using them to kill. Therefore, in my opinion, gun violence will be decreased or perhaps eradicated if the country as a whole improves mental health standards. We need to prevent guns from getting into the hands of dangerous people. If a person who owns guns begins to exhibit signs of mental instability, we need to enable law enforcement agencies to use sufficient discretion in determining whether these individuals should be able to keep their weapons. Perhaps law enforcement officials should be authorized to “check in” on weapon owners every so often, and make sure that they’re doing OK mentally and they haven’t transferred their weapons to another individual. Sure, this may be an inconvenience for gun owners who follow all laws, but I think it is a price we should be willing to pay to prevent yet another mass shooting.
