WITH yet another shooting in the headlines, America appears to sit poised on the edge of doing little to prevent the next one.
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The problem is a rather old one, or more specifically, one that has it’s roots in the interpretation of a 240-year-old document.
The US Constitution provides many rights to its citizens, but one is based in a time where America had no standing army.
The second amendment to the US Constitution allows for the right to own firearms, but the National Rifle Association and its supporters today feel that it should provide access to almost any type of firearm to anyone with absolutely no training required.
In light of the recent mass shooting in Orlando Florida, many are calling to reinstate a ban on assault weapons.
The pleas have come from many including law enforcement officials, current and former military personnel, and members of the general public, but as with many proposals of the past, they are shouted down by the deafening roar and money from the NRA.
In my home state of Washington, the NRA spent millions of dollars in a single campaign to prevent the requirement of background checks prior to the sale of a firearm outside of a retail store.
That is only one of hundreds of “common sense” laws the NRA had spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent, like expanded background checks, storage requirements, waiting periods, training, mental health exams and a national database tracking what weapons are owned by whom.
Sadly, after mass shootings in public schools, movie theatres, shopping malls and now a night club the pleas remain very much the same.
If only America could take a lesson learnt from Australia, taken to heart by Australia and acted on by Australia.
A lesson that took guns off the street and has not had a mass shooting since Port Arthur.
The firearms problem America really needs to address is one of want versus need.
Not a single mass shooting in the US has been stopped by anyone other than trained law enforcement.
It’s ridiculous this keeps happening.
Americans don’t need guns.
They want them and, with as little oversight and regulation as possible, events like these are the result.
- Ron Arel
