More and More Tragedies, Thanks to Guns

Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and a death penalty abolitionist used to say. "As a nun, I’m expected to offer thoughts and prayers, and indeed I do. But that’s not enough. We must rise up and take action together to stop this violence. This can’t keep happening." I keep that quote in my mind for so long that changed my perspective about gun violence. Like Sister Prejean said prayer is not enough and people need to take action to stop the gun violence. It is a sad thing when we continue to see more tragedies and more people dying because of gun. With me, a gun has two meanings. Protection and death. If a gun falls into the hands of someone who is dangerous, it will be death. If a gun falls into the hands of a wise person who knows what a gun is, it will be protection. I don't call myself as a gun advocate but I cannot stand to see nowadays, there are so many innocent people die because of nothing. They were parents, children, elderly, teachers, students, lovers, church goers, concert attendees, shoppers, massage customers, and people of a community. They left their lives.

Lunar New Year this year is sadder than ever when there was a mass shooting in Monterey Bay on the New Year Eve occurred in a dance studio, leaving 11 people died and 9 people injured. It was horrific. Tragedies followed tragedies. Another mass shooting happened in California, taking place in Half Moon Bay which left 7 people died. Then, another mass shooting in Oakland killed one person and injured 7 people. I was like WTF. Within a few days, there were three different mass shootings in California. I asked myself. What kind of world are we living in right now? I begin to lose hope on everything now. I was attending a Tet festival in Costa Mesa, California. I came there to enjoy and cover the festival for my newspaper. But deeply inside, I had butterflies. I didn't know if there would be another shooting there.

Nowaday, people wake up and read newspapers or watch news, they will see articles about a very serious important event that happened around the world. One of the most serious events and also an important problem is gun control. America had seen many horrific tragedies that were made by guns. Orlando’s Night club, Texas Church shooting, Las Vegas massacre, Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. And now is with other three. American had taken so much sorrow and tears. Politicians always say that they will change the gun law but actually, they do nothing about it. Do Americans have to wait for other tragedies so that they can change the gun law?

Guns are one of the biggest issues of the nation. 2nd Amendment states that"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (The Bill of Right). This clearly states that Americans are born with the right to own guns, and the government cannot control this right. That will violate the first amendment too. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” (The Bill of Right). However, when gun control is imposed making it harder or impossible for a U.S. citizen to own a gun, the right is infringed upon.

An increase in gun control would not solve the issue of violence. A concerned statistic from Gifford shows that guns kill Americans every day with nearly 41,000 deaths each year, which is over 110 gun deaths each day. It doesn’t sound good at all. The tragedies caused by guns is rising high like a tidal wave and it has no sign of going down soon.

But the government and the legislatures have not done anything to prevent another massacre tragedy to happen again. When the bloody shootings occurred again and again, the victims’ families usually received the consolation, the prayer, and the mourning.

That is not what they want. What they need is a specific law that can stop the gun violence, which has been a divisive topic not only in American society but also in its legislative circles.

It directly shows that gun control does not resolve any violence or crime issues. A criminal, by definition, is a person who has committed a crime. Since these criminals have already proven themselves to be those who break the law, more laws would likely not prevent crime. Additionally, guns are not the actual problem that needs to be addressed.

Based on those tragedies that Americans had to watch, to bear, to suffer might not be enough to wake up the government to deal with gun control. They went to election and they promised so many good things including gun control in order for the people to vote for them but after all they haven’t done anything to save this nation.

Besides supporting control, there are some opinions that are against gun control. People believe that controlling guns cannot help to change anything, more badly, it will make things worse. Many people seem to think that banning guns will result in significantly reduced violence. However, the ban of guns will fail to solve violence problems as criminals already, and will continue to, obtain guns illegally. There is no doubt that the existence of some 260 million guns (of which perhaps 60 million are handguns) increases the death rate in this country. We do not have drive-by poisonings or drive-by knifings, but we do have drive-by shootings. Easy access to guns makes deadly violence more common in drug deals, gang fights and street corner brawls.

However, there is no way to extinguish this supply of guns. It would be constitutionally suspect and politically impossible to confiscate hundreds of millions of weapons. How can people ban guns when people continue to produce guns to serve people? Now, just compare gun control to 1930’s Prohibition, when alcohol was illegal. Back then, the crimes increased without control, gangs started to appear, blood started to fall. Because of banning something that naturally belongs to people, they will start to feel uncomfortable and they just became bad. Returning to gun control, it can kill people too. According to one article, banning guns will not stop the crazed few who seek to open fire on the public.To the degree that liberals get their way on gun control, there will be more deaths of innocents. I’m not saying liberals would want the potential murders implied in the examples here to occur. But what they want legislatively would only—inevitably—lead to more killing.

There are a lot of arguments about gun control. Whether they give out some points on different perspectives. Some believe that guns should be controlled strictly, while others think that if they don't, it won’t bring back any good result. But anyway, whether doing the gun control or not, people should know that there were too many innocent people who died under the gun. They were normal people who went to the church every Sunday, they were students who went to school everyday to study, they were lovers who just wanted to spend time together. It is the time to change to be better, a future that only peace and guns are friends. No more blood, no more tragedies and no more consequences. One Nation, under God.