26 people lost their lives
Of those 26 people, 20 were under the age of 10, 6 and 7 to be exact. The lives of 20 children were taken and nothing can make that better. Their friends and families may never be able to fully recover from the loss.
A very similar thing happened in China around the same time as the Sandy Hook massacre. A man in China stabbed 22 children outside of an elementary school. No one was killed. This is not to take away from the trauma, pain and suffering of these victims. Their experience was traumatizing and may leave mental and physical scars on the victims for the rest of their lives. But at least they get to have a "rest of their lives." The victims of the Sandy Hook massacre will not.
The differences in these two stories calls into question the always controversial topic of gun control. Even without this latest tragedy, I would be for tighter gun control. Most violent crimes are committed with guns. The type of gun also matter. Assault weapons cause mass casualties that would not be possible with guns of a lower caliber.
They would find a way to get them anyways.
This argument does nothing for me. Its like saying that a criminal could still break into the house so just give them the TV now. If assault weapons were illegal or even just regulated more closely, illegal guns would be harder to obtain and much more expensive. This would reduce the number of individuals that had access. There is nothing that can be done to totally elimination the number of people that have access to these guns and I know that. Something has to be done though.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
VS.
"Guns don't kill people, they kill LOTS of people."
Really? There were 22 children attacked by a person. They all survived. There was another group of 26 people attacked by a person. All of them died. Was the difference the person or the weapon? Guns are part of the problem. The truth is that a person with a gun can do a LOT more damage than someone with a knife or even a gun of a lesser caliber. There is evidence that proves that strict gun laws can be effective. The very strict gun laws in Japan include a thorough background check system. Gun ownership is down and they have 11 gun related murders to our 12,000. I am not suggesting that we adopt their policies verbatim but it is food for thought. The U.S. has the highest gun related death rate in the world. By far. There IS a problem and those that say there isn't are either a) lying or b) just that ignorant. (whether or not they believe gun control is the answer.)
Chris Rock is a very funny man. But he makes a good point behind the even better joke.
“You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control...I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... S**t, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his a**.’ - Chris Rock
Does this look like something you shoot a deer with? It doesn't to me. But it is what 20 school children were shot with.
I don't pretend to know everything about gun control. I know even less about guns themselves. But you don't have to be a genius to know that there is a problem. You don't want stricter gun control or ammunition control? Then what do you propose we do about this? How many school shootings and other tragedies like this have to happen before something is done about it. Gun control is just the first issue that comes to everyone's mind but if anyone else has a suggestion to help make sure that these things can no longer happen, I'd love to hear it. I'm all ears.
There is no cut and dry response to an issue of such grave importance, but something has got to give.
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