UNITED STATES—We’ve talked about it before, and yet again we have another situation where violence has erupted in the United States from the direct result of a madman with a bevy of ammunition that one should not have in their possession. We have talked about the issue of mental illness and how more should be done as a government to screen and get the help to those who desperately need it. Yes, this is important because so many of us skirt the fact that mental illness in America is a massive problem that we ignore.
However, gun control in this country is such a big problem, and I’m tired of people bringing up, “Now is not the time to have a discussion about it.” Well, if now is not the time to discuss gun control than when will the right time transpire? I mean 59 people, 59 people were killed and over 500 injured when Stephen Paddock decided to fire at unsuspecting patrons in Las Vegas who were attending a country music festival. This disturbed man had over 23 weapons inside his hotel room, several of them semi-automatic guns.
Other shocking news was the revelation that after authorities served a search warrant on his home in Mesquite, Nevada that found more than a dozen additional firearms at the home. It’s startling; especially with the revelation that Paddock showed no signs of mental illness or acts of violence. So the question that still remains is how he brought such a massive trope of gunfire into the Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort without being detected and how did he get his hands on so much weaponry.
We have to go back to the Second Amendment which addresses concerns pertaining to the Right To Bare Arms. Everyone wants to be able to utilize this right to the fullest potential. They either hunt or want to have a gun or guns inside the home to protect their family. However, we know statistics reveal that a person with a gun is more likely to shoot someone inside the home than a complete stranger. Yes, it’s an alarming statistic, but the truth of the matter is it happens all the time every single day. It’s not something that we can just act as if it never happened. I mean last week, I heard a terrible tale about a 2 year-old who got his hands onto a loaded gun inside the home and shot 2 other kids, critically injuring them.
This is a problem, luckily in this case the kids survived, but there have been so many incidents where kids have gotten their hands on a gun and all did not end well. I mean we talk about a mass shooting or a shooting incident of some kind happening somewhere in the United States once a week. It’s alarming; it’s scary as hell and we should not be treating this as something normal. We have an issue in regards to easy access to guns that needs to be halted.
For starters, just think about how much crime could be deterred if we can get illegal guns off the streets. Yes, it seems impossible, but if we start making strides now it could happen. The focus without a doubt should be making it illegal to have possession of any type of weaponry that should only be utilized in the world of war. If you’re not on the battlefield is there a reason to have a semi-automatic gun? No, and it’s time for those politicians and members of Congress to stop cowering in the shadows and make a stance. Do something so that we can stop reliving the conversation once a week, once a month or however many times it transpires in a given year.
That is the thing that frustrates me most; we have become numb to such incidents of mass violence. It happens; we’re sad for a few days and then expected to be back to normalcy. There is nothing normal about what happened in Las Vegas this week or any of the other countless mass shootings that have transpired in this country in recent years. Such violence is not acceptable and it’s time for us to take a stance once and for all.
