Ian Benson
As of press time, 13 people were killed and another eight were injured in the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. This is the deadliest attack on a U.S. military installation since the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood.
Fort Hood. Aurora. Newtown. Virginia Tech. Tucson. There’s more I’m forgetting. When the hell does that list become too long? How much longer can we pretend to be a civilized society when we’ve nearly averaged a mass shooting every month since 2009? Or have we already crossed this point and now we’re all just numbly indifferent to another incident?
I’m a staunch advocate of our rights. I’m a particularly big fan of freedom of speech, press and religion. I think they’re essential to our concept of democracy, and I think they make us a better nation. But I’m done with the Second Amendment. I’m done with the idea that people are entitled to a gun. No, you don’t get a handgun or an assault rifle. Hell, I barely think you should be able to own a hunting rifle. I don’t care if it compensates for your less than ideal sexual characteristics. Buy a convertible, not a weapon of war.
This isn’t the fault of movies or television or video games or music. It’s an inherent problem within our culture. And it needs to change. After a series of high profile shootings in Australia, the country’s government got together and men sacrificed their political careers to push through stronger gun legislation. It took them three and half months to draft and implement this legislation. Now, Australia has had zero massacres since 1996. An estimated 5.2 percent of Australian adults own a gun. In America, it’s 47 percent.
There is no earthly reason why anyone outside of the military should be able to use an AR-15. If you’re wondering why I’m focused on the AR-15, a semi-automatic assault rifle, it’s because it was used in the Navy Yard shooting. And the Aurora shooting. Oh, and Sandy Hook as well. And four other shootings since 2012. Currently, there are no federal restrictions on owning one. How is that even possible? One of these incidents should be enough, but here we are, with 61 deaths due to this weapon in little more than a year and still no progress.
We need to stop pretending to be a civilized nation and actually address this problem. We need politicians who aren’t afraid to put their careers on the line and protect this nation. This simply cannot persist. We can’t advance as a people unless we stop being barbarians who find some comfort in the ability to own a weapon of war. We equate masculinity with the ability to pull a trigger and end a life. That needs to stop. Those who fanatically cling to the trigger, ranting about how the government is tyrannical and stripping us of our freedom, are holding us back as a country. I’m tired of this stranglehold on progress because some people don’t feel adequate without a gun. Either relinquish them and join the rest of us in moving toward a civilized world or get the hell out of our way.
And we need to stop fooling ourselves into thinking that guns have some purpose other than murder. They don’t. They were created to kill; they’re designed to kill; and they are damn good at it. There is no reason anyone should have those in a nation in 2013. We have a military and a police force to protect us. Imagine what it would be like if they didn’t have to protect us from people with semi-automatic weapons, or concealed hand guns?
But the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun’ you say. That logic is terrible. No civilian gets to be the one who decides in that situation, especially a terrified and untrained civilian with a gun he bought to seem tough. More guns don’t make the situation safer; they only endanger more lives.
No one can explain the Navy Yard shootings, or any of the other tragedies that have occurred too recently. We can find motive and a history of violence, but that won’t make any more sense of this situation. A tragedy occurred. A tragedy occurred after we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that they have to stop. We look at the families marred by this and we weep for them, we pray for them and we come together for them, uniting behind them in a time of tragedy. But then, the weeks pass, we get distracted and we move on until it happens again. Until Aurora becomes Newtown becomes Washington. But what if this was the last time? What if we actually finally changed things and we didn’t have to worry again? What if that was the country we lived in, for the first time in our lives? Isn’t that a world worth fighting for?