I'VE GOT QUESTIONS ABOUT GUNS IN AMERICA

When does the right to own a gun capable of such destruction become more important than the lives we are losing? I’m not talking about recreational hunting or going down to the firing range; I’m talking about owning fully automatic assault weapons. This is a problem that impacts us even here in Minnesota. According to the City of Minneapolis 2022 Gun Violence Overview from Aug. 10, fully automatic gunfire is up to 183 instances this year compared to 50 this time last year. Since August of 2020, when the first automatic gunfire was recorded in the city, 390 instances have occurred.

 In the column that I wrote on Generation Z (printed in the Sept. 8, 2022, edition of the Connector) I mentioned that my generation has had to grow up with the ever-looming threat of gun violence. I talked about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting and how it felt to see students my age be in that kind of situation. I talked about wondering if our school drills would be enough and what would happen if it were my school. I think that, with over 490 mass shootings in the United States in 2022 alone, we need to sit down and have a conversation about the Second Amendment. No screaming or yelling at each other, but actually talking and expressing and learning.

The argument many use is that their freedoms to bear arms is being infringed upon, but what about the freedoms of those who have lost their lives, are forever changed by gun violence, or are friends and family of someone impacted? What about the children in schools being taught to run, hide, and defend themselves? What about the teachers that need to worry about how they will protect their students? What about the parents terrified to send their children into school?

I remember having a conversation in high school with one of my peers about how they thought of ways to escape in each classroom just in case an active shooter situation happened. I had thought of this as well, and so had others in our class. At the time, we made it into a joke: our classroom daydreams could be an action movie. 

Sometimes, it’ll hit me in the grocery store or church or the theater or at a concert. These are all places where multiple mass shootings have happened. I try not to live a life in fear, of course, but I am frustrated because I do not have to have these feelings. Citizens could be better protected. While Minnesota is one of only two states to have regulations on assault weapons, I believe, as a country, we could also do better. Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor at William Paterson University, conducted a study that compared mass shootings (a public incident of four or more deaths or injuries) in the United States versus other developed countries. Half of 36 developed countries have not experienced mass shootings in the past 22 years. Only five had more than two mass shooting events. In contrast, the United States had at least one mass shooting every year during 1998 to 2019. 

I don’t believe that wanting to stop mass shootings and gun violence is as radical or as political as it now seems in the U.S. I think that getting anywhere in terms of laws surrounding gun violence is a problem that both Democrats and Republicans could fix. Because of the rivalry between the two parties, it seems like we have gotten nowhere with both gun control and/or mental health support related to gun violence. 

I am tired. I am tired of innocent people being killed. I am tired of worrying about my siblings in school and my husband, who is a teacher, being shot. I am tired of politicians pointing fingers instead of getting things done. Many developed countries do not go through this, and yet, in a country named a “world power,” we must go through it again and again. Even with the argument that mass shootings are all mental health-related, and have nothing to do with guns, why are we not addressing mental health more openly? Why do we not have more thorough background checks? 

Domestic violence is a large contributor to mass shootings and gun violence, in general. Sixty percent of mass shootings are an act of domestic violence or are committed by domestic abusers, according to an analysis done by “Bloomberg News.” Why is this rarely addressed when talking about mass shooting and gun control? How will we hold each other and our politicians accountable in lowering gun violence? Maybe it’s time to start talking more about the rights of all the lives that have been lost.