This blog is in response to the April 2nd 2014 shooting at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas. My heart and prayers goes out to all who lost a loved one, and those who were affected directly and indirectly by this tragedy. Someday I wish that we will live in an America where such tragedy’s are non existent, so that if one were to occur, it will shock the very core of our souls and no one will be able to sleep at night because of such an unfortunate incident. However, the reality is that we live in an America where it appears that we are slowly becoming desensitized to senseless acts of gun violence.

Before I move forward, I must put out the disclaimer that I am certainly no expert on gun control, or mental illness. I am working with a basic understanding of guns and human beings. My conclusion is extremely elementary: Guns are weapons designed to kill, therefore human beings with guns have the capacity to efficiently kill more people in less time.

On April 2^nd 2014 there was yet another mass shooting that occurred at Fort Hood army base by Army Spc. Ivan Lopez, leaving 4 people dead and 16 people injured. This has occurred just five years after army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hassan shot and killed 13 people and injured 30 others at the same Fort Hood army base in 2009. Less than a week later, the conversation has all but disappeared from the front pages on major newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA today and The New York Times. And I get it, life goes on, even for those who lost their loved ones, life must go on. That makes me wonder, if we have become desensitized to gun violence/ mass shootings? If so, let us revisit these sobering facts (courtesy of New York Daily News):

Dec. 14, 2012: 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Earlier, he had killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home.

Dec. 11, 2012: 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts killed two people and himself with a stolen rifle in Clackamas Town Center, Oregon. His motive is unknown.

Sept. 27, 2012: 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger , shot 5 people to death at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minn. Engeldinger ended up killing himself in the rampage over losing his job.

Aug. 5, 2012: Six Sikh temple members were killed when 40-year-old Army veteran Wade Michael Page opened fire in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page killed himself as cops moved in.

July 20, 2012: During the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo., 24-year-old James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58.

May 29, 2012: Ian Stawicki opened fire on Cafe Racer Espresso in Seattle, Washington, killing five and himself after a citywide manhunt.

April 6, 2012: Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, shot five black men in Tulsa, Okla., in racially motivated shooting spree. Three died.

April 2, 2012: A former student, 43-year-old One L. Goh killed seven people at Oikos University, a Korean Christian college in Oakland, Calif.

Feb. 27, 2012: Three students were killed by Thomas “TJ” Lane in a rampage at Chardon High School in Ohio.

Oct. 14, 2011: Eight people died when 41-year-old Scott Evans Dekraai shot up the Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, Calif.

Sept. 6, 2011: Eduardo Sencion, 32, entered an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nev. and shot 12 people. Five died.

Jan. 8, 2011: Jared Loughner, 22, opened fire at a Safeway market in Tucson, Ariz. Six people died, and then-Rep. Gabby Giffords was badly injured.

Aug. 3, 2010: Omar Thornton, 34, gunned down Hartford Beer Distributor in Manchester, Conn. after getting caught stealing beer. Nine were killed, including Thornton.

Nov. 5, 2009: Forty-three people were shot by Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. Thirteen were killed and 29 were wounded.

April 3, 2009: Jiverly Wong, 41, opened fire at an immigration center in upstate Binghamton before committing suicide. He killed 13 people and wounded 4.

March 29, 2009: Eight people died in a shooting at the Pinelake Health and Rehab nursing home in Carthage, N.C. The gunman, 45-year-old Robert Stewart, was targeting his estranged wife.

Feb. 14, 2008: Steven Kazmierczak, 27, opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, killing six and wounding 21.

Feb. 7, 2008: Six people died and two were injured in a shooting spree at the City Hall in Kirkwood, Missouri. The gunman, Charles Lee Thornton, opened fire during a public meeting after being denied construction contracts he believed he deserved. Thornton was killed by police.

Dec. 5, 2007: A 19-year-old boy, Robert Hawkins, shot up a department store in Omaha, Neb. Hawkins killed nine people and wounded four before killing himself.

April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech became the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history when a student, Seung-Hui Choi, gunned down 56 people. Thirty-two people died.

Feb. 12, 2007: Five people were shot to death in Salt Lake City by 18-year-old gunman Sulejman Talovic.

Oct. 2, 2006: An Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster, Penn. was gunned down by 32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts, who separated the students by gender before killing five girls. Roberts committed suicide afterward.

March 25, 2006: Seven died and two were injured by 28-year-old Kyle Aaron Huff in a shooting spree through Seattle, Wash.

March 21, 2005: Teenager Jeffrey Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend before opening fire on Red Lake Senior High School, killing nine people on campus, plus himself.

March 12, 2005: Terry Michael Ratzmann, a member of the Living Church of God, shot up a service at a hotel in Brookfield, Wisc. Ratzmann killed himself after executing the pastor, the pastor’s 16-year-old son, and seven others.

July 8, 2003: Doug Williams shot up a Lockheed plant in Meridian, Miss. in a racially motivated rampage, killing seven before taking his own life.

Dec. 26, 2000: Edgewater Technology employee Michael McDermott shot and killed seven of his coworkers at the office in Wakefield, Mass. McDermott claimed he had “traveled back in time and killed Hitler and the last six Nazis.”

Sept. 15, 1999: Larry Gene Ashbrook opened fire on a Christian rock concert and teen prayer rally in Fort Worth, Tex. He killed seven people and wounded seven others, almost all teenagers. Ashbrook committed suicide.

July 29, 1999: Mark Orrin Barton, 44, murdered his wife and two children with a hammer before shooting up two Atlanta day trading firms. Barton was believed to be motivated by huge monetary losses. He killed 12 including his family and injured 13 before killing himself.

April 20, 1999: Teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold shot up Columbine High School in Colorado. They killed 13 people and wounded 21 others. They killed themselves after the massacre.

WHAT IS OUR RESPONSE TO THIS?

I feel myself entering into murky waters: gun control.

My heart wants to say that gun access and ownership should be so stringently regulated so that almost no civilian can obtain a gun, but for the purposes of their livelihood, but my head recognizes that, that is practically impossible and potentially detrimental. The United States Second Amendment protects the rights for individuals to bear arms. However, in my opinion when the second amendment was ratified in 1781, the United States of America was a radically different country from what it is today. The Second Amendment was highly influences by  The English Bill of Rights of 1689. Today many people need guns for their hunting purposes, farming purposes, sports related activities and self-defense purposes. And while in my opinion, these a legitimate reasons to own a gun, it is almost impossible to regulate the person behind the gun. According to the National Institute for Justice, many juveniles and young adults can easily obtain guns illegally; most claim to carry them for self-defense.  However, year after year, many people lose their lives to senseless acts of gun violence, some are gang related, others are domestic related, and many individuals with access with guns have had a history of mental health problems. What I cannot understand is why do we need to continue to give people access to purchase guns. The vast majority of Americans do not need a gun for farming and hunting purposes. I can barely understand why shooting animals is a sport, but you can call me ignorant on that point. I understand that people have their freedoms, but at what expense? The price is too high in my opinion.

The National Rifle Association considers themselves to be “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization, [and] proud defenders of history’s patriots and diligent protectors of the Second Amendment.” The following are some of views based on a poll conducted on 1000 of its members on gun issues in 2013:

• 90.7% of members favor “Reforming our mental health laws to help keep firearms out of the hands of people with mental illness.” (A majority of 86.4% believe that strengthening laws this way would be more effective at preventing mass murders than banning semi-automatic rifles.)
• 92.2% of NRA members oppose gun confiscation via mandatory buy-back laws.
• 88.5% oppose banning semi-automatic firearms, firearms that shoot one bullet per trigger pull.
• 92.6% oppose a law requiring gun owners to register with the federal government.
• 92.0% oppose a federal law banning the sale of firearms between private citizens.
• 82.3% of members are in favor of a program that would place armed security professionals in every school.

Dare I say that America has had a love affair with guns for far too long. It is a controversial topic, it is a difficult one to talk about, but it is a very necessary conversation. In my opinion, we should have this conversation every single day because every single year, thousands lose their lives to gun violence in the U.S alone.

References:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/04/us/fort-hood-shooting/

wikipedia.org