Greg Gancarz
Editor
After Nikolas Cruz opened fire in a Florida high school on Wed. Feb. 14, 17 kids are dead.
It’s not surprising that horrid events like these prompt discussion, as they should. It’s also unsurprising that people’s knee-jerk reaction is to tighten the grip on gun control, as they view the tool to be the cause. Recently, rare dramatic examples like these always seem to overshadow the positive benefits that firearms bring American citizens, like safety and security within their own homes. Millions of Americans own firearms and utilize them safely and responsibly every year.
Citizens are increasingly told they should be content to rely on law enforcement for protection, but in places like New Orleans, where a report by the New Orleans Advocate in 2015 revealed that the average response time for 911 responders was well over an hour, waiting for police assistance is not always a realistic alternative to self-protection.
While there is heated debate over whether or not “right to carry” laws actually help reduce crime rates, homicide rates did plummet in states like Florida and Texas after their concealed carry laws were passed, according to statistics gathered by gunfacts.info. In general, according to stats collected by the site, crime rates are generally higher in states with restrictive gun legislation.
“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand,” Seneca the Younger said nearly 2,000 years ago.
The debate over cause and effect regarding weaponry would seem to be as old as the chicken and the egg debate. From the beginning of the United States, the founders decided to enshrine the right to bear arms in the second amendment of the constitution.
Sadly, stepping on the foundations of our great nation’s laws is becoming more and more common in an era where a plaque commemorating George Washington was removed from a Virginia church because he was deemed too “controversial.”
The constitution is apparently archaic in this day and age. For the discontented, it’s a code of laws written centuries ago by a bunch of racists. For the corrupt, it’s just a hurdle to leap over and manipulate to further consolidate power, rather than guide our government’s conduct. But to throw away the foundations of the laws of this nation is not to be taken lightly. Amending the constitution is incredibly hard and the right to bear arms was deliberately added as part of that constitution. It was not just common law that the founding fathers wanted in place. They enshrined it as a right that they did not want to be removed easily.
Whether or not people can still seriously entertain the idea of throwing off an oppressive government is up for debate, but the notion is still there in spirit, if nothing else. The second amendment was not put in place to protect the right to hunt deer, nor was it put in to allow people to have a good time at the firing range. It was meant to give people the power over their government as something of a last resort, an insurance policy. That if all else failed, the people might have the means to decide their futures by force, as was the case with the nation’s birth.
Even if all the weight that we the people have behind us has more or less evaporated due to militaristic technological innovations over the last 200 years, erasing the second amendment still reflects a fundamental change in the fabric of the American value system. It reflects a shift towards total reliance on the state and a people totally at the mercy of politicians; a system we in Illinois know works “oh, so well” because of politicians like Blagojevich. It’s an attitude and a system that is diametrically opposed to the founding principles of the United States.
Terrorist attacks like those in Paris, Nice, and London in recent years, show that mass violence will never stop just because access to firearms decreases. Criminals will use trucks, cars, knives, machetes, bombs, and yes, they’ll still use guns. Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the USA, also possesses one of the highest rates of firearm homicide. Local media also recently reported that even the number of bullet holes found in murder victims has increased since the 90s. The study, published by the Chicago Sun Times, reports that the number has nearly doubled.
Switzerland, on the other hand, has one gun for every four citizens and is continually ranked as one of the safest places on the planet in terms of violent crime according to their official published statistics. Mass shootings just aren’t an occurrence there. The USA does not have a gun problem. It has a crime and mental health problem.
Yes, the Florida massacre could have been prevented, but if the shooter never had the gun, there would have likely been other weapons used instead. This nation needs to address mental health issues rather than take more firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.