Sigh. It
happened again. And again. And again. I know this subject has been discussed an infinite number of times, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. The shooting at
LAX that took place this Friday is nothing new. In fact, it is so common to see
things like this on the news that it almost becomes the norm, which happens
when we experience something enough times in our lives (another well-known example
is beauty image). There is no doubt that there is a gun issue in the U.S. but
still politicians and ordinary citizens can’t for their lives begin to criticize
it.
When I was in the U.S. for three months I believe I didn’t go many days without hearing the words “gunman” and “shooting” on the news (this may come as a shock to many Europeans). These reports have become such an everyday occurrence that we effortlessly and casually brush it off, perhaps thinking about the victims for a second before we get back to whatever we were doing. But no one asks why or how it can be prevented.
There seems to be a consensus among Americans that guns don’t kill people, but crazy people with guns do. And if we made the accessibility of guns more difficult, someone who’s out to kill will find their way around the law anyway. But this is the problem, you see, because most of these shootings have been carried out by people who happened upon guns, that is: guns that where found, most of the time in someone’s (e.g. parent’s) house. Most of these gunmen did not go out of their way to get their hands on a gun, it was there right in front of them when they snapped and felt like doing something drastic. The question is if there wasn’t a gun there, would their actions have been as brutal? Off course, this is also an issue of safe gun storage in people's homes.
Many of these horrific shootings involve children (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html). A three year old child finds his dad’s gun under the couch and starts playing with it, accidentally shooting himself in the head. Unfortunately a true story. There’s a false idea that the more people who own a gun for protection, the safer they will be. I hope I don’t have to spell out how ridiculously stupid this sounds. As a matter of fact, more guns mean decreased safety and higher firearm related deaths (http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00444-0/fulltext). And the award for most guns per capita goes to… the U.S. You do the math.
When I was in the U.S. for three months I believe I didn’t go many days without hearing the words “gunman” and “shooting” on the news (this may come as a shock to many Europeans). These reports have become such an everyday occurrence that we effortlessly and casually brush it off, perhaps thinking about the victims for a second before we get back to whatever we were doing. But no one asks why or how it can be prevented.
There seems to be a consensus among Americans that guns don’t kill people, but crazy people with guns do. And if we made the accessibility of guns more difficult, someone who’s out to kill will find their way around the law anyway. But this is the problem, you see, because most of these shootings have been carried out by people who happened upon guns, that is: guns that where found, most of the time in someone’s (e.g. parent’s) house. Most of these gunmen did not go out of their way to get their hands on a gun, it was there right in front of them when they snapped and felt like doing something drastic. The question is if there wasn’t a gun there, would their actions have been as brutal? Off course, this is also an issue of safe gun storage in people's homes.
Many of these horrific shootings involve children (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html). A three year old child finds his dad’s gun under the couch and starts playing with it, accidentally shooting himself in the head. Unfortunately a true story. There’s a false idea that the more people who own a gun for protection, the safer they will be. I hope I don’t have to spell out how ridiculously stupid this sounds. As a matter of fact, more guns mean decreased safety and higher firearm related deaths (http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00444-0/fulltext). And the award for most guns per capita goes to… the U.S. You do the math.
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