The time has come America, to take action about your deadly gun culture. Your love of guns has not only blinded you to the reality that they empower individuals to kill a lot of innocent people, but your selfish demands to keep unnecessary types of guns available to the general public shows how you value your hobby – not your rights – but your own selfish desires, over the lives of the innocent.
March 22, 2021. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa opens fire and kills 10 people and injures another 2 at King Soopers shopping market in Boulder Colorado. It comes 6 days after the Atlanta Spa shootings on 16 March 2021 where Robert Aaron Long killed 8 and injured 1.
Between February 2nd and March 22nd 2021 there were at least 5 mass shootings by a gunman where 3 or more people were wounded or killed. And what will the new US President Joe Biden do? He’ll make some touching speeches, he will ask Congress to intervene, but nothing will happen. Which is sad because Biden, as a president who has said he only wants to serve 1 term, could be the first President to not worry about his hopes of re-election and take unpopular action to fix this problem.
Some of the more notable mass shootings I remember have been the 2012 Aurora Colorado shooting at Centry 16 movie theatre. 12 innocent people wanting to watch Batman were killed.
Then 26 innocent people, mainly 6 to 7 years olds gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary school.
16 killed and 22 injured in December 2015 in San Bernardino when a married couple opened fire at the husband’s office party.
October 1st 2017. An act of terrorism when Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, he killed 61 and injured 411 in Las Vegas.
In fact, I’ve found around 125 news reports of different mass shootings from the USA since January 2010. That’s just over 1 mass shooting a month in the USA.
Yes these shootings are carried out by deranged individuals, people we must defend society against: but isn’t it even more deranged to not do anything to prevent another mass shooting?
When a mass shooting revives the gun control debate, measures are discussed for show, measures like universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, and a ban on high capacity magazines. You know, the bare minimum of gun control; the sort of things any reasonable nation would do, and not just talk about for show.
The American government is a servant to the people. But, they have allowed the lunatics run the asylum. The lunatics are the gun lovers who value their guns over the lives of the innocent.
I accept some Americans genuinely want to have a gun at home for their own protection. Hunting, use on a farm, an Olympic target sport, that sort of thing. But if you had a gun for these purposes, you would store it away safely, not put it on proud display where kids can access it, or make over the top retail displays of them at the local shopping centre. You would safely keep them locked away and treat them like a hardware or garden tool you would use for legitimate purposes. But, America’s gun culture isn’t like that. American gun lovers collect guns, generally the bigger and deadlier the better, to feel empowered. For their own ego. And it is sad, because they value their ego above the lives of the innocent.
Because no one needs a collection of assault rifles, semi automatics, uzis, anti tank weaponry. That is an unreasonable hobby to be allowed to happen. No one needs to show up at a protest armed like they are about to be deployed in a war zone.
I accept there are legitimate uses for guns – but feeling empowered, compensating for something, isn’t one of them. That’s just being irresponsible. But America’s leaders seem to be irresponsible when it comes to guns. They are using them as symbols of strength. When their strength should be coming from their actions to reform gun laws.
Sure gun advocates will say that criminals will still get their hands on guns. But that’s rubbish. Make guns difficult to buy, like Australia did after the Port Arthur massacre, and most of the disarranged will have a hard time getting their hands on a gun so easily and unknown to authorities. Don’t believe me? Well, it is the experience of every country with reasonable gun laws. Less guns in society equals less mass shootings.
Americans, learn to think of your fellow citizens around you, don’t say it is your right to pursue a deadly hobby that puts other people’s lives at risk…how could you be so selfish and stupid?
