Recent events such as the Aurora Movie Theatre Shooting July 20, the Sikh Temple Shooting Aug. 5, and the Empire State Shooting Aug. 24 have led the United States government to take a second look at gun control laws.
Personally, I am all for the right to bear arms. However, I don’t feel the impulse to own a gun because I don’t participate in sports or activities requiring me to do so. If you want to exercise your right to own a gun, then you are protected by the Second Amendment.
With that right, comes responsibilty. Gun shops and other distributers should keep an eye on all their customers. For instance, if someone had a shopping cart consisting of tear gas, assault rifles, and body armor, then that should obviously raise a red flag.
All of the shootings in the past two months could have been avoided, in a sense. Given, the want to murder only comes from disturbed individuals, and it is likely that they would have found another way to do it. This doesn’t take away from the fact that these shooters obtained a firearm. Standard background checks do not detect a shooter’s desire to kill or his or her ability to think rationally.
For example, the man responsible for the Sikh Temple shooting was Wade Michael Page, an avid white supremacist coming from a military background. One in 8 soldiers coming home from war suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. One of the symptoms is outbursts of anger.
Arms dealers should never give a man with such background a weapon of any sorts. He has the right to own a gun, but when a man is affiliated with hate groups such as white supremacists and comes from experience in battle, a big red “X” should be planted on his forehead.
The same goes for the Aurora Movie Theatre shooter, James Holmes, who admitted to classmates in March that he wanted to kill people. This was four months before he gunned down 70 civilians at the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Prior to the shooting, he had been denied admittance to the University of Iowa. This setback could potentially put a mentally unstable human, such as Holmes, at risk for violent behavior. How he managed to get his hands on such deadly weapons including the AR-15 Assault Rifle, Remington 12-gauge shotgun, and a .40 Glock Handgun (all attained legally, in a statement by local police) is beyond me.
Conclusively, I don’t care if you own rifles meant for hunting or other sport. What upsets me is the poor background checks conducted on people who are considered mentally unstable and prone to act on violent impulses. I would even go as far as calling it ignorant, when such senseless violence can be so easily avoided.
