A Culture of Death
The Korean student who shot dead 32 people on Monday spent his first eight years in an apartment about five minutes away from my current home. But where he was from makes absolutely no difference, it's just another excuse, another place to throw some misplaced blame. Blame the parents, blame the school, blame the teachers, blame the friends, blame whoever or whatever you want, and when you're finished, step back and take a look at the real problem. Guns are destroying America, stealing life, ruining families and all for what? So a bunch of middle-aged guys from Missouri with insecure grips on their manhood can stockpile killing machines in their closet?
Any death is tragic, whether a plane full of people crashes or a 90-year-old dies in their sleep, but what's so much more than tragic, what is damn near infuriating is when something so preventable occurs because of an entire country's fascination with piece of metal than can destroy a life in a split second.
Last year in England, where handguns are illegal, there were 56 homicides. In Richmond, Virginia, where I spent six years of my life, there were 81 shooting deaths. The population of England is 61 million. Richmond, 200,000. Do the math. More than 30,000 Americans wiped off this Earth every year by gunfire.
OK, so what? I can own a gun responsibly and I need it to protect my family. Hell, I'm an American, the right to bear arms is my constitutional right. It's what the founding fathers wanted and be damned if I'm going to give up any sort of freedom. It's a view that runs deep into the heart of American culture, but it's misguided to the point of lunacy.
The only reason people think they need a gun is because there are so many others out there with one, hell, if they have one, I better even-up the playing field. It's a terrible cycle. You buy a gun because you're afraid of what a bullet might someday do to you. It's so easy to get a gun in America that they might as well sell them in vending machines at the local supermarket.
In Virginia, if you have a pulse and driver's license, you can walk into almost any Wal-Mart and walk out a half hour later with a gun. A quick background check is about as much scrutiny as you'll get. Just had a big fight with your girlfriend, you're jacked up on coke, that bitch is going to get it. Well, hey, why not just give it to her now? You could be locked and loaded and back at her front door in an hour.
The right to free press, free speech, free assembly, those are freedoms I cherish, they are what make America such a great place. The right to carry a gun, that's not a freedom. Freedoms inspire people, freedoms bring people together, freedoms can spread joy. What they don't and what they shouldn't do is rip a country apart and spill blood all over its land. No thanks, I don't want that kind of freedom.
Sure, the Virginia Tech shooter, without access to guns, could very well have killed, anyway. There is nothing that is able to stop darkness and evil. So he snaps and grabs a knife, walks into that classroom, kills a student. Maybe even the professor. Then he's on the ground. There's only so much damage other weapons can do before people have time to react and stomp it out. A gun takes the flick of the finger and it can mow down a crowd in seconds. There's no excuse for allowing access to that kind of devastating power. Yes, someone made the decision to pull that trigger, but why did it have to be so easy to get to that point?
A lot of politicians will say now isn't the right time to pursue stricter guns laws, it reeks of political opportunism, turning a national tragedy into a circus. But America easily forgets. A couple weeks from now, what happened at Virginia Tech will fall off the front page, replaced by the next big story. If there was ever a time for a country to look inward, to really consider what it holds most dear, it is now. What is worth more? A gun or 30,000 lives?
Any death is tragic, whether a plane full of people crashes or a 90-year-old dies in their sleep, but what's so much more than tragic, what is damn near infuriating is when something so preventable occurs because of an entire country's fascination with piece of metal than can destroy a life in a split second.
Last year in England, where handguns are illegal, there were 56 homicides. In Richmond, Virginia, where I spent six years of my life, there were 81 shooting deaths. The population of England is 61 million. Richmond, 200,000. Do the math. More than 30,000 Americans wiped off this Earth every year by gunfire.
OK, so what? I can own a gun responsibly and I need it to protect my family. Hell, I'm an American, the right to bear arms is my constitutional right. It's what the founding fathers wanted and be damned if I'm going to give up any sort of freedom. It's a view that runs deep into the heart of American culture, but it's misguided to the point of lunacy.
The only reason people think they need a gun is because there are so many others out there with one, hell, if they have one, I better even-up the playing field. It's a terrible cycle. You buy a gun because you're afraid of what a bullet might someday do to you. It's so easy to get a gun in America that they might as well sell them in vending machines at the local supermarket.
In Virginia, if you have a pulse and driver's license, you can walk into almost any Wal-Mart and walk out a half hour later with a gun. A quick background check is about as much scrutiny as you'll get. Just had a big fight with your girlfriend, you're jacked up on coke, that bitch is going to get it. Well, hey, why not just give it to her now? You could be locked and loaded and back at her front door in an hour.
The right to free press, free speech, free assembly, those are freedoms I cherish, they are what make America such a great place. The right to carry a gun, that's not a freedom. Freedoms inspire people, freedoms bring people together, freedoms can spread joy. What they don't and what they shouldn't do is rip a country apart and spill blood all over its land. No thanks, I don't want that kind of freedom.
Sure, the Virginia Tech shooter, without access to guns, could very well have killed, anyway. There is nothing that is able to stop darkness and evil. So he snaps and grabs a knife, walks into that classroom, kills a student. Maybe even the professor. Then he's on the ground. There's only so much damage other weapons can do before people have time to react and stomp it out. A gun takes the flick of the finger and it can mow down a crowd in seconds. There's no excuse for allowing access to that kind of devastating power. Yes, someone made the decision to pull that trigger, but why did it have to be so easy to get to that point?
A lot of politicians will say now isn't the right time to pursue stricter guns laws, it reeks of political opportunism, turning a national tragedy into a circus. But America easily forgets. A couple weeks from now, what happened at Virginia Tech will fall off the front page, replaced by the next big story. If there was ever a time for a country to look inward, to really consider what it holds most dear, it is now. What is worth more? A gun or 30,000 lives?
posted by Ryan at 12:59 PM
1 Comments:
well-said, Bonner.
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