Opinions expressed in editorials on The Central Trend are the view of the individual writer and are not the opinion of the entire staff of The Central Trend or the Forest Hills Central staff or administration.
According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been approximately 389 mass shootings so far this year. A shocking statistic, yet simultaneously not so shocking.
In the past few years, we’ve heard endless statistics about gun control so terrifying and depressing that when I looked up information for this editorial, I read that number and simply thought, “Sounds about right.”
Recently, on Sept. 4, a school shooting took place in Georgia, sending yet another ripple of demand for gun control throughout our nation.
One day later, on Sept. 5, J.D. Vance spoke at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, and discussed the events of the day before, labeling school shootings as a “fact of life,” creating tons of backlash against him, as well as his and Donald Trump’s platform.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able” (AP News).
Urging for better security rather than stopping the problem at the root, Vance claims that states with stricter gun laws have a lot of school shootings, whereas states with looser restrictions only have “some” school shootings (Poynter). He is essentially conveying that places with more gun control have more shootings, which is outright false; various studies have shown the opposite: states with stricter gun laws have fewer gun-related deaths.
An argument against this common sense that is often used is “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Gun control is not an evil force that is going to take away guns from hunters or from people who want them for self-defense or other reasonable purposes. The purpose of gun control is to regulate access to guns, and as long as the people trying to purchase are legally allowed to—they must be old enough, not convicted of certain crimes, and mentally well—they will be just fine (Giffords Law Center).
It is only a matter of time before another school shooting or another mass shooting takes place, and this cycle of tragedy and fruitless activism begins again. It will not end until politicians take action and reform gun control laws.
This does not have to be “a fact of life” nor a “reality that we live in.” It can change if common sense comes through and regulations are placed on guns in order to keep them out of the hands of the people who will use them for harm and destruction.
We need to refuse to let school shootings become a fact of life. Refuse to become accustomed to tragedy.
So, when we, students who live in fear and have to remain wondering if we are the next target, say that we are done and that we need gun control reform, we don’t mean later, and we don’t mean tomorrow.
We mean today, before you or someone you love becomes a victim of gun violence, not after.
