Tim Guan
@TEXASCOWBOY30
With the call for newer gun reform legislation—which roughly translates to stricter gun laws—congress has been their usual incompetent self in achieving any outright reasonable gun reform legislation without sacrificing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
Because of the prevalent anti-gun bias within the left-wing media, their agenda towards the repeal of the Second Amendment is now a harsh and possible reality for many law-abiding and responsible gun owners. Enemies of freedom will make it their goal to not only take away your constitutional rights as citizens, but take away your means in defending yourselves against real-hardened criminals who wish to harm people.
Gun control legislation has been a joke in recent years, even with the ban of assault weapons, such the one California enacted last year. Of the 11,000 gun-related murders that happen every year in America, the majority are done by handguns. The margin of error for assault weapons related murders is virtually zero percent with only 300 deaths according to a Pew Research Center statistic from 2014.
Banning handguns? Also a bad idea, and Brazil learned that the hard way.
According to statistics compiled in 2016 by the Pew Research Center, the murder rate in Brazil was 21.9 gun-related fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, of which 95 percent were homicides. This disproportionate homicide rate by firearms is imperative to analyze in that even with the tightest gun-control laws, criminals will always find their way. While Brazil is still a developing country and has many more problems than the US on a socio-political level, the evidence still remains valid– people are people regardless of nation.
So how do we realistically and reasonably address gun violence? The answer may lie in our mental health system. Unbeknownst to many people, the majority of mass shootings are done by seemingly “normal” people who happen to have a previous history of mental disease.Whether it be the Sandy Hook or Columbine shooters, we have failed miserably in detecting these signs as conspicuous as it can be. While the old saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” holds true, it may seem counterintuitive to think the opposite.
While I slightly disagree with the NRA’s stance on background checks (they are a reasonable and sane thing to do), I do agree with the old saying– the only way a stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Unfortunately, current law makes potential victims remain unarmed when heart-wrenching tragedies such as Sandy Hook and Columbine could happen again, any time of every day against the innocent and defenseless.
