After every mass shooting in the United States, one thing is guaranteed — another shooting is lurking in the future. President Obama admonished the American people after the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado, saying, “This is not normal. We can’t let it become normal.” However, mass shootings can’t become normal because they already are. Rolling Stone recently published a summary of the mass shootings in 2015. In their criteria, a mass shooting is “one in which at least four people are killed or wounded; the FBI uses three dead or wounded as its criteria.” The grand total: 353 mass shootings from Jan. 1 to Dec. 2. That equates to more than one mass shooting per day in the U.S.
Appeals for tighter gun control laws have been debated in politics since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, but very little has been done. Firearms and ammunition are easily accessible and inadequately regulated in many states. In a segment by ABC4 News, reporter Brian Carlson demonstrated how easily obtainable guns are in the state of Utah by purchasing a gun from a store in Kearns. The manager of the store tells Carlson the entire paperwork process and background check takes about five minutes. The manager claims that “if you wanted to come in here and buy 20 firearms, and I had 20 firearms in stock, you’d be leaving with 20 firearms.” Additionally, the ammunition the store provided “is pretty much as close to military style ammunition [as you can get] without actually enlisting,” and there are no restrictions on the amount that can be purchased.
Gun rights activists cite the Second Amendment as justification for the amount of firearms that are presently in circulation. “The right to bear arms” has been deemed an absolute, and anti-gun control sympathizers quote this Amendment as if it actually substantiates their argument. But it does not.
According to Adam Winkler, UCLA law professor and author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, referencing the Second Amendment means very little. As quoted in The Washington Post, Winkler said, “The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that no right under the Constitution is absolute” and if “the government has very strong reasons to restrict a right, it can.” The Washington Post cites several examples; free-speech rights do not include the right to leak government secrets or yell “fire!” in a movie theater; freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures does not include exemption from airport security checkpoints; and freedom of religion does not allow Kim Davis to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Multiple principles outlined in the Constitution have been altered by the government, so the “right to bear arms” is not immutable.
In 1996, Australia experienced a mass shooting that left 16 children and one teacher dead. The government responded by banning semi-automatic weapons and sponsoring a national buyback program. The government recognized that the deaths of 16 children were unacceptable and made necessary changes to prevent it from happening again. What has the American government done since 20 children were murdered by a shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School? Almost nothing.
Gun rights activists may have the “right to bear arms,” but the U.S. population has the right to safety. The American people have the right to attend school in Oregon, go to church in South Carolina, see a movie in Colorado and walk through college towns in California without being shot. The frequency of mass shootings in the U.S. is a strong enough reason for the government to place sensible restrictions on the “right to bear arms.” Killing sprees have become an everyday, and sometimes multiple-times-a-day, occurrence. It is ridiculous. The “right to bear arms” does not trump the right to live, and the sooner gun rights activists realize this, the sooner our country can eradicate mass shootings as a commonplace phenomena.