By Elise Lemay
On Feb. 14, a 19-year-old individual entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and killed 17 people, mong them an athletic director, a football coach, a teacher, and 14 students whose lives were ended before they even truly began. These lives were taken by the senseless act of a young man who should have never had access to a semiautomatic rifle. This shooting is the third deadliest school shooting in U.S history. How many deaths of children, shot to death while trying to get an education, does it take for lawmakers to finally take action and enforce stricter gun laws?
After a mass shooting takes place in the U.S., a predictable cycle ensues. Government officials and lawmakers share their condolences. They tweet out that their thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s and their families. They avoid using the word “gun.” Simultaneously, a storm of gun control debates flood our Facebook and Twitter feeds for a few weeks. Then nothing happens. No gun laws are put in place, no attempts to prevent future “thoughts and prayers” are put into action.
Opponents of gun control offer a seemingly hopeless view of American Democracy. For example, when proponents of gun control note the success that countries like Australia and Scotland have had as a result of strict gun law and bans, opponents argue
“America is different; it wouldn’t work here.” The argument that if something might not work, we shouldn’t try it at all, seems futile when we are talking about the lives of American children.
Maybe increasing gun laws wouldn’t completely change the gun climate in our nation, but isn’t it better to make a small amount of change then none at all? Wouldn’t it be better if we could prevent the senseless killing of one person?
If we could avert at least one parent having to learn the news that their child had been shot to death at school that day? Additionally, the argument that banning certain types of guns won’t actually do anything completely dismisses the point of our democratic government. If laws do not work why then do we have them at all? Is it not hypocritical, or at the very least horribly depressing, for our lawmakers to argue that laws don’t change anything? Why are they in the profession then?
If American lawmakers continue to sit back and do nothing but, send their thoughts, they are complacent in the killing of children.
Elise Lemay is a sophomore at St. Michael’s College.