Mass shooting in USA: Why, How and it's way out
“If the President wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I'm going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.” That is what Emma Gonzalez an 18-year-old student who is a survivor of the Florida school shooting said during a 11-minute speech at an anti-gun rally. But sadly, this isn’t the first school shooting that has happened and is certainly not the first mass shooting in the United States. In fact, it has been estimated that there is a major mass shooting every two months. Around 346 people were killed in the united states in mass shootings in 2017. That is more than one person for each day of the year.
However, it seems as if nothing real is happening so far. The United States is the only place where something like a mass shooting is common and it seems as if it’s going to maintain that title. A democracy is supposed to serve what the people want and according to a recent pole done by the Quinnipiac University now around 66 percentage of the respondents supported more stringent gun laws. Then why is nothing happening? Why did it not stop after the first one? It’s not impossible, many countries have shown the way. Countries like Australia and the UK have proved that these kinds of crimes are preventable.
The answer it seems is not hard to identify. The National Rifle association is an American non-profit that advocates for gun rights. They rationalize that the second amendment justifies their demands since it states, “the right to keep and bear arms”. Looking back to the speech made by high school senior Emma after questioning the President’s goodwill she gave an answer to her question to Trump. “You want to know something? It doesn't matter, because I already know.” She continues. “Thirty million dollars. And divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and one-half months in 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump?” While each side has their way of justifying the use and purpose of all this money, it is safe to say that the NRA does have huge political influence in the United States. That is why even after the dreadful attack on Sandy Hook when little children were shot dead, shootings are still happening all over US.
The NRA has been distracting the scene lately. Wayne LaPierre the head of the NRA had spoken after the Florida school shooting. He blamed insecure school, Family structures, Mental health systems, the FBI, Mainstream media, Democrats and even European socialists but he did not question the weapon that was used to carry out this attack. Without which many that had been lost to this tragedy would still be here. Another thing he pointed out was that to stop a bad guy with a gun you need a good guy with a gun. That ideology has brought up the “eureka” idea by many that teachers keep guns to protect their students in case of a shooting. But the question I think is important is that “What if the bad guy didn’t have a gun in the first place?”. These questions are never answered and many like Emma are shut down by big organizations and no change takes place in a place which desperately needs it.
While the situation may seem gloomy, all is not lost yet. There are still many young people out there who see the threat and who know what to do. The chances of an outright ban on guns anytime soon may not be high. But progress can be made and this time change is showing. More than 50,000 people will be attending the “March for our Lives” on 24th March. The march has already
collected more than 2 million dollars in donation, including contributions from big stars like Oprah Winfrey. Stricter background checks are being talked about and hopefully with the amount of public support things may finally change. President Trump has with the support of many republicans promised to ban bump stocks (An attachment that makes a semi-automatic weapon fire almost as fast as an automatic weapon) even if “congress does it or not”. Voices like Emma’s need to be heard and they shouldn’t stop any time soon. Bump stocks may not be the whole deal but they are a start.