New gun control methods can prevent tragedies

David Pradere/ Contributing Writer

Not too long ago, the Columbine High School massacre was surpassed by a sadistic individual named Nikolaus Cruz who had nothing but malicious intentions. Seventeen innocent teenagers, filled with hopes and aspirations, had their lights snuffed out by this one harbinger of death.

Cruz’s name has become a name that now holds with it the weight of all the blood and tears of those who lost their lives and their families. A name that will be marked in American history as the deadliest school shooter to exist. A name that will embody the need for and hopefully, the start of a change in what exactly the Second Amendment entitles an American to.

A disturbed child, Cruz demonstrated every single red flag that could go off for a potential school shooter: He hurt and killed animals for fun, had a fascination for weapons and owned various types of them, and was violent and reclusive, among others.

The FBI even received a tip from someone close to Cruz that he owned a gun and had talked of committing a school shooting. Ben Bennight, a bail bondsman from Mississippi, reported Cruz’s menacing comments he made in a Youtube video to the FBI. Despite both warnings, and others, no action was taken.

Instead, all of these warnings were swept under a rug and never looked into, and as a result, America had to witness a bloody Valentine’s Day.

On this day, he managed to infiltrate the school with an AR15, various clips of ammunition, smoke grenades and a gas mask.

Yes, it’s the right of every American to own a gun in order to protect themselves against harm and the government should it ever turn to tyranny.

But what American in this day and age truly needs a semi-automatic assault rifle capable of such carnage and destruction? No American needs a military-grade weapon with firing capabilities made for war, granted our modern-day stability.

While the answer to stopping such events from happening again is gun control, the method to tackle it remains perplexing.

Too much gun control can lead to situations like Chicago and New York, where crime is incredibly high.

Too little gun control leads to situations like Feb. 14. One could argue that we could follow Texas’s example, where gun control laws are incredibly lax and crime isn’t a big issue, but a single case can’t be the leader for a whole nation.

A great place to begin is to remove the congressmen and women from power who have been bought out by the NRA. These officials have taken significant donations from an organization that only seeks to arm every citizen and turn a blind eye to the incidents like these.

Sen. Marco Rubio is a local example. A man who has received over $3 million in NRA donations has done nothing to install common-sense gun laws and who seems to be content with not suggesting even an iota of gun control to Congress.

The next step we could take would be a temporary ban on assault weapons, mostly to compare statistics from one time to the other and see if the deaths caused by them decrease with the ban in place. 

If not that, then perhaps restrictions on the accessories purchased for their guns and the kind of bullet that can be bought by a civilian.

Cruz had military-grade 5.56mm ammunition for his AR15, something that can easily be bought from your local Walmart without a background check.

The struggle to make America a safer place for all is a long and tiresome one. This unfortunate shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will be the one bullet casing to break the nation’s back.

America needs to put its foot down and do something about the senseless violence that has gone on for far too long, and realize that for the greater good of its nation, reflection and action are a must.

We can no longer idly stand by while insidious people continue to harm our neighbors, friends and family.

We as a nation must show that we have had enough and exercise our right of free speech and expression to express our pain and anguish over what our right to bear arms has caused.

 

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The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of Panther Press Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

 

Photo by David Levêque on Unsplash.