Gun Control

My parents love to talk. Oh boy do they love to talk. Especially when it comes to politics. Unfortunately, they choose me to be their audience. Maybe it’s because I’m just such a good listener. (Sarcasm intended) My mom, being the left wing woman that she is, thinks all guns should be banned and that there’s no use for them. My dad, being a right wing conservative, owns many guns and loves them. He believes it’s his Second Amendment Right and has been quoted saying, “They’ll get my guns when they pry them from my cold dead fingers” Aren’t my mom and dad just perfect for each other? And then there’s me, in the middle. I believe some guns should be banned, not all of them. 

The other night, I was a little full of myself and decided to push my dad’s buttons. I started making little comments here and there about gun control and how having automatic rifles is completely unnecessary. Then I dropped the hard to answer question: Is having these kids die in mass shootings worth you having your AR-15? When I tell you he erupted, I mean it. I’m talking nuclear bomb combined with a tsunami. I should know better and not poke the bear. He went on and on with a rant that was way too long. But, I won’t bore you with the details. Basically what he said bearing arms is his right and bad people will do bad things no matter what. He then proceeded to call his friend, another conservative, and I had the luxury to have not one, but two middle aged men yelling at me.

While my dad and his friend might not represent the whole pro-gun community, they represent most. They all tend to use the crutch of “It’s in the Constitution, it’s my god-given right” First of all, it wasn’t god-given. It was written by powdered wigged slave-owners. I’m not a historian, but I’m pretty sure when the Constitution was written, they didn’t have automatic rifles that can mow down twenty people in a matter of seconds. They had muskets that couldn’t hit water if you aimed at the ocean. If today we lived by values from two-hundred plus years ago, black people would still be considered ⅗ of a person and people would still by dying from a one-hundred degree fever. 

Now I’m not saying get rid of all guns. I believe it is important we stop producing and allowing common people own automatic rifles. There is simply no need. The benefits of owning a rifle capable of that much harm is not worth the thousands of lives each year that die each year from firearms. Yes I said THOUSANDS. According to Skye Gould and Shayanne Gal and their article on mass shootings (https://www.insider.com/number-of-mass-shootings-in-america-this-year-2019-8), “At least 313 people have died in mass shootings this year. … combined, with some 11,000 people in the US killed in firearm assaults each year.” 

The sheer ease of purchasing a firearm in the U.S. is laughable. I remember watching the video on YouTube. A news channel had a segment where a thirteen year-old kid tries to buy things he’s not old enough to buy. He tries beer, the clerk laughs and denies him. He tries cigarettes. Again, no luck. He then tries to buy, oh no, lottery tickets. The clerk at that store even denies him. The kid goes to a private seller, easily and legally buys a weapon. He’s thirteen years-old. So don’t come at me with “Our gun laws are improving” We are letting little kids who do Fortnite dances own these weapons capable of mass destruction. If you don’t want to listen to me, listen to a Senator. According to Sen. Jon Tester in an article on buying a gun legally, (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/20/how-to-legally-buy-a-gun-in-the-united-states/29034879/) “If you want to give a gun to your son or daughter or you want to sell it to your neighbors or friends, there is no background check required,” People can purchase guns completely off the books and there’s nothing we can do about it. That means the mentally ill, felons, children, anyone can buy a gun. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty dangerous to me.

Think of the pain each and everyone of these families goes through when they lose a family member due to these shootings. Think of the little kids, no older than ten, losing their lives at Sandy Hook. People our age, losing their lives at school every year, a place where they should be safe. People going to church aren’t even safe. All of this is preventable. I’m sick of watching the news in horror, looking at all of these innocent people affected by these shootings. Aren’t you?