Jun 1, 2014
Warning: the following article may be considered offensive and/or impertinent to gun activists and/or those who sanction the heinous assassinations towards youth innocents by a shooter victim to the sexual misogyny and double standard of feminism.
Nearly 100,000 people will be shot this year, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. 17,000 will be younger than 9 years old. More children today die of gun violence than of cancer. (USA Today)
On the night of May 23, a crazed man diagnosed with mental illness, Elliot Roger (22), allegedly stabbed and gunned down six people near the campus of the University of California Santa Barbara. Roger admitted to the act, stating that he did it because women refused to have sex with him.
It’s a tragic story that’s tragically not a rare one.
Common sense would contend that the mentally ill, the reckless, the emotionally distressed, etc. should not have basic access to guns. It is indisputable that too many people who should not own guns, unfortunately, do.
It is a measure of a uniquely American insanity that truths so obvious and inarguable are regarded as controversial by many people in this country. For example, Georgia recently enacted a law allowing guns in churches, school zones, bars, government buildings, and even parts of airports.
If the public cannot distinguish between literal and ultimate implications of personal safety that the Second Amendment tries to protect, then the only way to prevent gun-related deaths (manslaughter or malicious) is to stop guns from reaching the wrong hands. The least the public can do is to unanimously come to a middle ground and agree that restrictions are needed, in the interests of innocent noncombatants. Perhaps regulating who has the right to these firearms. De-romanticizing the misinterpreted Second Amendment, maybe. Ignoring NRA or GOA battle cries of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”.
People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. (Harvard School of Public Health). A hard aluminum machine, yes, cannot consciously end someone’s life. But a person with a gun can, intentionally or accidentally, more often and more efficiently than people without guns.
California has the strictest gun control laws in the country, according to the Los Angeles Times. Last December, the state of California had received an A- grade in a state-by-state analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Unfortunately, these laws proved to be no impediment to Elliot Roger, who had legally purchased multiple handguns, several low-capacity magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition legally in advance of his horrific attacks in Isla Vista, California that left six dead and thirteen wounded.
So… how do we stop the next Roger? Do we continue to ignore this issue? How do we react to the next “inevitable” mass shooting? When do we start preventing the next Tuscon shooting? Virginia Tech? The Navy Yard in Washington, the movie theater in Colorado, Sandy Hook Elementary?
How many more kids have to die?