I guess everybody and especially parents around the world were shocked and grieved when hearing about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut The shooting is one of the worst mass shootings in US history and one of many in the recent years. Reading about the shooting, seeing the pictures, it seems to become even more hard or I should say impossible to comprehend.
But amidst all this drama, human suffering and grieve one thing becomes even more clear than before, something has to seriously change in the US when it comes to the (lack of) regulation of firearms. The Land of the Free. The Land of Opportunity. The Land of countless great inventions. But also the land with the worst statistics on casualties on firearms. The Land with the most imprisoned people per capita in the world.
Now, the right to own guns is deeply rooted in American society and linked to the right to protect yourself. I even read someone saying it’s also the right for the people to defend themselves against the government… [WHAT???].
And every time a drama like this lights up the discussion about firearms again. And then there are who say it’s not appropriate to use such a drama in what they call “a political discussion”. There are who say it’s too soon. This is what New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says about that:
We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns.
There seems to be a shift in the discussion. More than before the public demands change in gun control policies. I guess and I hope that the death of so many innocent young children is an eye-opener for even the most “gun loving” people. In just one day a “We The People” petition already gathered >64.000 digital signatures, which is enough to put the topic on the agenda of the government and hopefully press politicians for change.
Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek and now Connecticut. Some still label these drama’s as “incidents”, which is probably what people hope they are. Hope that it will blow over. But the truth is, every day over 30 people are murdered with guns, but apparently it takes a horrendous massacre like the one in Sandy Hook Elementary School for people to realize. Obviously banning of firearms won’t mean the end of crime and killings but for sure it’s a huge step in the right direction.