On Dec. 14, a young man shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School, and took the lives of 20 children and six other adults. This event was so tragic and incomprehensibly brutal that social media and news media spent days and weeks pondering at how such a horrific thing could happen. They also pointed fingers, and chose scapegoats. A great debate over the United States’ gun and mental health laws has begun in the media, on the internet, among classmates, coworkers, and family. There is no sole scapegoat or cause for this. Each and every terrible massacre is its own event and probably had its own cause. But all the massacres had one thing in common: the weapon.
In order for gun deaths to decrease, so to must the availability of guns, at least for the mentally ill. A total outlaw of guns is impossible and not necessary. The second amendment should, and will, survive. However, there needs to be major change with America’s gun laws.
The perpetrators of these massacres all stockpiled weapons and most of them were legally obtained. The Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooter had bought weapons and gear online for months leading up to the attack. This goes the same with most of the other perpetrators of recent mass shootings.
The Aurora shooter also used an AR-15 assault rifle with a 100-round drum magazine, the purpose of an AR-15 is not to hunt, it is for combat. It is a military grade weapon. Also, the 100 round magazines would’ve allowed the attacker to continuously fire for a longer period of time. The only thing that stopped him from killing more was the fact that it jammed. A high-intensity assault rifle similar to the AR-15 was used in Sandy Hook. The mass shooting in Arizona that wounded congresswoman Gabriel Giffords was committed with pistols that utilized extended magazines. The killer was only stopped when he had to reload after firing 30 times. Imagine if he could’ve been stopped after firing 10.
From 1994 until 2004, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban limited the sale and ownership of many of the assault weapons used in these killings. It also limited high capacity magazine sales. Since its expiration in 2004, six of the 12 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have occurred. It is correct that not all of these utilized weapons that were banned under the law in that decade, but certainly some of them did.
Mass shootings have no simple solution. Mental healthcare needs to improve. It is hard to tell because suicide among the killers is frequent, but it is likely that many of the perpetrators were not mentally healthy, and had they gotten a routine mental check up they would’ve been able to receive help before it all went wrong. The approach of the media has come under fire too. It is said that maybe the shooters are getting too much attention, their faces are plastered on the news and their names have become household words.
Whatever the true problem is, we may never know. But new gun regulations are one of the keys to helping curb gun violence and stopping mass shootings.
