When I first received word of the tragedy that unfolded at Umpqua Community College, a senseless shooting in which 10 innocent lives were lost, I didn’t know what to feel. There was only sadness. For the rest of the day, two thoughts and two thoughts alone repeated in my mind without end.
The first was simple. I prayed that God would grant peace to those who died in such a senseless manner. I prayed that God would give them the peace they could not find in those final minutes of fear and despair as the quiet around them came crashing down with horrible finality.
The second was different. It was something that has been turning in my mind ever since, and was echoed by the president. Our prayers are no longer enough. They have never been enough.
While I lived and studied in England and France over the course of my junior year, I was often the only American around, and by default the only person even marginally-qualified to field my European friends’ questions on American politics. Almost always, the topic of guns would come up. They could not understand why our nation seems to tolerate such extreme levels of violence. I gave the same answer every time. We have become numb to it.
Over the last decade it seems as though there is a mass shooting every single month. Yet is actually worse than that. So far in 2015, there have been 294 mass-shooting events in the United States, with a mass shooting being defined as four or more victims and at least one shooter. That is an average of more than one mass-shooting event per day. In the short period of time since the Oregon shooting occurred, two more shootings have taken place on school campuses in Arizona and Texas.
Each and every time a mass shooting occurs, the same sense of unavoidable tragedy permeates the news. These things happen. Pray for their souls and move along. There is nothing to be done.
Yet there is plenty to be done. Every other developed nation in the world has enacted gun control laws, and subsequently, has seen violent gun crime rates plummet to historic lows. The level of gun violence in our nation is not an uncontrollable fact of modern life; it is a political choice that we as a democratic nation have made collectively. We have made the choice to do nothing. We can choose differently, too.
I am in no way advocating that we heavily restrict the ability of the everyday American citizen to purchase a gun for the expressed purpose maintaining their own personal well-being and the well-being of those closest to them. This is a clear constitutional guarantee in a document riddled with vague language. However, there must be a system in place that can prevent these guns from being placed in the hands of those who wish to cause others harm. A person seeking therapy, or undergoing treatment for a mental illness, should not be able to purchase a gun. A person should not be able to obtain a gun without a thorough background check. These are tiny measures that could make an incredible difference.
Yet there are those who continue to advocate that we do nothing. That there is no law that will prevent these sorts of things from happening. That the criminals of the world will get their hands on guns no matter what impediments we put in their path. That instead, we must better the seemingly violent mindset of our nation, a task so massive in scale and wholly impossible in reality that they are simply asking again that we “do nothing,” yet under different terms.
To that diligent, militant minority of Americans that shout from the rooftops in order to simulate the voice of a majority, I say this: One definition of insanity is to change nothing and expect a different result.
In light of that, maybe we should keep guns away from you, too.