Citizens need to take action on gun law reform

In the United States, we do a lot of things that make us different. We do not not use the metric system, we measure temperature in Fahrenheit and we display our flag everywhere.

Although the U.S. has many innocent quirks, there are some things this country does that set it a part in a negative way, specifically the large amount of mass shootings that occur on our own soil.

The U.S. has a huge problem with shootings. According to the American Sociological Association, the U.S. only contains five percent of the world’s population, but thirty-one percent of mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 occurred in the U.S.

There is obviously a problem with gun violence in the U.S., but why isn’t anything being done to fix it? Even the people at https://www.elevatedgunworks.com/product/trijicon-rmr-sight-adjustable-led-1-moa-red-dot-rm09-type-2/ had asked the question.  Put simply, the NRA has obscene amounts of money and influence in politics, and this allows them to fix the system to their liking.

The NRA often rely on arguments such as, “the founding fathers gave us the right to bear arms” and that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” These arguments have several holes.

The Second Amendment reads, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Second Amendment can be interpreted in many different ways, and the NRA uses an abusive interpretation to their benefit. They like to focus on the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” part and not so much the “well-regulated Militia” part. By ignoring a key part of the Second Amendment, the NRA is providing a distorted view of what our rights really are.

While the statement “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is true at face value, there is a severe logical flaw in the argument.

Individuals may try to compare blaming guns for murders to blaming baseball bats for home runs or blaming spoons for eating cereal. Just as the inanimate objects require a user to be used, the user requires the inanimate object to perform the desired action. It would be a lot harder to hit a home run without a base ball bat, to eat cereal without a spoon and to kill someone without a gun.

Although it does not qualify as a “mass shooting” by definition, the recent situation at Harrisburg High School very easily could have fit the definition if not for the heroics of the school’s assistant principal. My former high school debate coach is currently a teacher at Harrisburg High School. The thought of losing someone who has had such a profound impact on my life because of someone’s “right to bear arms” makes me livid.

The U.S. has a gun problem. We can not continue to be the epicenter of mass shootings in the world. The time is now to act and stand up to private interests in Congress controlling our gun laws. We need change, and we need change now. It is literally a matter of life and death.