I'm not unfamiliar with gun violence and it's affect on a community. My junior year was the year of what became known as the Virginia Tech Massacre an event four years ago where one lone student (known now as only Cho) entered a building and, before blowing his head off, killed 32 people. What followed was an outpouring of love and affection to the community and a reentering into the old gun debate that has been shaping political platforms for years.
I remember that time well. My work at the time had been desk attendant at the student center art gallery and as a server for a catering company. Prior to April 16th, my duties had been answering phones and serving overpriced chicken to VT loving alumni following their wedding set somewhere on campus. After, I spent months sorting through every card, every poster, every craft sent to tech with well-wishes as simple as "we're here for you" to as heart-wrenching as the young neighbor of one the victims asking that her sentiments be added to the poster boards provided on campus while serving dinners for the victims families and hotdog lunches for the students who, like me, had made the town their home. It's was an emotionally exhausting experience made worse by constant media coverage and contact from home letting me know that uninformed students at my high school came to school with hand-made "Cho, and american hero" t-shirts.
And this is an obvious major lapse in our media-saturated, political world. A group of people die, and suddenly every politician and media figure chimes in with how awful they know it is and what the problem is... the other guy.
6 people die in Tucson, and along with the term "Blood Libel" being thrown around information about the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, is pumped into every media outlet. Just like Cho. After the Tech Massacre, Cho's manifesto of being bullied came out turning him into a martyr for bullied kids everywhere. But the truth was, bare bones, he was mentally unstable. He had no connection to the people he killed. He didn't kill the people that hurt him. He killed people because he was hurt. Had Loughner not been successful, had be been stopped before anyone took a bullet, there wouldn't be scores of articles about how obviously he was deranged, how in high school he exhibited unhinged behavior, people wouldn't be coming out the wood work saying how they ALWAYS knew he had issues. He was mentally unstable. This is obvious in that he opened fire with no provocation. But throwing information from his past only serves to paint a changing unclear picture of who he was and misleads the public to denouncing him as some sort of fucked up demon.
Just look at this picture.
Now look at this one.
Doesn't one look like the guy you saw at the grocery store? And one of those photos was a lot easier to find than the other.
Why is that dangerous? Because it doesn't serve to prevent anything. It separates Loughner from being a member of society and morphs him into something that people don't understand and thus cannot recognize the patterns for the future. The fact is, anyone who is mentally unstable with a gun can open fire. There is evidence of this all over from school shootings, to serial killers, to gang wars, to the old "postal worker going postal" of yore. It hits the media, elements of their personal life are passed around and twisted to become the list of why and the final result becomes "this was a crazy person who slipped through the cracks". Here's the real, scary truth. You've probably passed someone just like these legendary crazy people today on the street. You've probably asked them the time or pet their dog. Because they're people. Even Hitler was an art school drop out.
The media twists and turns with who the person was and then the politicians jump in with why it happened.
To have guns or to not?
Except that's not really what's it about. Come on, no matter what politicians are saying they know the truth. There is absolutely no way to abolish guns in the US. It's just too late. Even IF there were enough people in the government to actually put that through, with the number of people in the US in support and willing to fight for their gun rights, do you really think every single person would all willingly throw their guns into a furnace? Look at drug laws. Ignoring the marijuana tug-a-war, is there anyone who doesn't have ONE acquaintance who has had cocaine in their possession? Or tried ecstasy? Hell, PROHIBITION. So knowing that there's no way that guns will disappear the next fight is control. Should everyone be allowed a concealed carry? Would someone attempt to gun down a meeting if there was chance at least half of the people there had a weapon on their person? FUCK YEAH. They might hesitate but more likely they'll plan better, use the element of surprise. Beyond possible mental issues, something all these people have in common when attempting a mass murder is planning. Cho planned. Loughner planned. Kazmierczak planned. Harris and Klebold planned.
It doesn't take very long to fire wildly either. Take another look at the Kent State shootings in 1970 where the Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds wounding nine and killing four students. 13 seconds. That's all the time it took for four students to die. And that's the NATIONAL GUARD. Or look at Charles Whitman the gunman from the University of Texas clocktower shooting where 16 people were killed. So imagine if you will, everyone has a gun on their person. However the shots are coming from above. Concealed carry covers handguns. Whitman used a Remington 700 and .35 caliber rifle respectively from a barricaded position on the 27th floor.
Do the math.
It's a never ending debate with facts and supporting research on both sides. Maybe wider concealed carry laws would help, maybe they wouldn't. The biggest issue I'm seeing is this blood libel crap. It all started when a new, hip independent group called the Tea Party began gaining ground in the political spectrum under platforms such as a more a strict interpretation of the constitution, adopting a simpler single-rate tax system no longer than 4,543 words (the length of the constitution), repealing the health care legislation passed March 23, 2010, and, of course, lowering taxes (because the rich are always for tax breaks... sorry couldn't resist a little non-partisan). They ruffled feathers and were known for "speaking for true americans" (except those who disagreed I suppose) and respecting the constitution (though how anyone could know the true intent of the founding fathers without a time machine is beyond me) going as far as reading the constitution aloud when the House turned mostly repub. Some members of the Tea Party are famous for hilarious vocal blunders such as O'Donnell criticizing Darwin's Theory of Evolution as "a myth" and Trent Franks quote “He has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity,” in relation to Obama which of course reminds me of the billboard comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin in Iowa.
But that was all fun and games, another addition to politicians say the darndest things. What began the blood libel debate was this quote from the now infamous Sarah Palin:
Along with:
One of those crosshairs was right on US Representative Gabrielle Giffords who was critically injured after being shot in the head. Whoops.
Then came the so called blood libel. One side said her posts (and similar posts from other candidates) incited violence. The other side said the whole shebang was being spun to defame Palin and the movement as a whole.
Frankly I don't agree that Palin's crosshairs led to the Loughner shooting. But if anything needs more attention it's the casual nature these politicians take to gun control. If part of your platform is increased gun freedom it is completely irresponsible to use gun terminology when campaigning against of other members of the government. Since there is no way to completely abolish guns, then more care needs to be taken with the laws, further clear restrictions and deeper education. How does it make sense to propose freedom of firearms while suggesting US citizens should be "armed" against laws they don't agree with? Are we suggesting that gun laws should be less restrictive so everyday people can use more force to get what they want? That we should be able to live as constant possible threats to one another to prevent being threatened? They teach you in school to compromise otherwise what is the point of anti-bullying in schools? Be nice to each other until you're old enough to vote then use force to get what you want? Is that what the constitution stands for? In-fighting?
And where is the education about the horrors of being shot? Does everyone pushing for the right to carry have an idea of what it feels like to have a bullet tear through their digestive track?
I'm just a 24 year old with a bachelor's. I'm not qualified to make those sort of decisions. But my opinion is, with the US being a country that allows guns, we should be taking more care to fully understand the consequences of using a firearm not just owning one, we should be more respectful in public of those consequences and we should truly focus on what has happened when the "wrong" person has come into ownership of a firearm.
There are millions of situations where something can go wrong with a gun. With those odds, EVERYBODY runs the chance of being the "wrong" person.
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