Doing Nothing Won't Solve Anything

Columbine, Jonesboro, Blacksburg, Tucson, Aurora, Oak Creek, Clackamas, Newtown. We can no longer call these “isolated incidents.” This, unfortunately, has become a way of life. A way that must be changed now, before it happens again. For me, what makes it worse are all the people who think everyone should be armed. Are you insane? More guns equal more murders. People say if the ‘good guys’ have guns, they’ll stop the ‘bad guys.’ When I was in college, I had a summer job at a restaurant. My co-workers’ brother would come in every so often for free food (don’t tell the boss!) We were all around the same age and became friends. He was in a bar one night when a robber came in. The “good guy”, an off-duty cop, pulled out his gun and started firing. My friend was caught in the crossfire. He wasn’t killed, but that 19-year old who loved to go out dancing, was paralyzed from the waist down. The robber only wanted money. If that “good guy” didn’t have a gun, my friend would probably still be dancing today. When our founding fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment, the world was a vastly different place. Those men could no more imagine school shootings or automatic weapons than they could imagine cell phones or computers. Laws must evolve as life evolves. What worked 200 years ago, doesn’t work today. Automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons, extended clips---none of those things had been invented when the 2nd Amendment was written. The only purpose of automatic weapons is to kill people, and to kill a lot of them in a short amount of time. There is no place in a civilized society for these types of weapons. They must be banned. Guns should be harder to obtain, and the laws need to be more uniform from state to state. If you want a gun for a legitimate purpose, if your hobby is target shooting or hunting, you should be OK with better regulation—because you don’t want the “bad guys” to ruin your right to own a firearm. I wanted to volunteer at a FanFest event when the MLB All-Star game came to Southern California a few years ago. I had to submit to a background check—just to volunteer my time. Buying a gun should be harder than volunteering for community service. I know people say there will always be criminals and crazies and bad guys. Sure, there will be, but doing nothing doesn’t solve anything. We have to try. We take off our shoes and put our shampoo in a plastic baggie in order to board a plane. Is that a perfect solution? No, it’s not—but we did something. We tried. We can be better. We must change our reality in the memory of 20 first graders, 6 teachers, 12 moviegoers, 6 constituents, 2 Christmas shoppers, 6 Sikhs and 32 college students. For all of us.