ANOTHER city, another school, another time. Same deadly story. It feels like we’ve been here before, like a well-worn reel of film that keeps repeating itself over and over. But the plot is always invariably similar. And the ending always tragically the same. A mentally-ill person decides to go on a shooting rampage. Firearms and ammunition are easily acquired, seemingly with less difficulty than purchasing a six-pack of beer, or a pack of cigarettes. Innocent people are massacred.
Grieving families. Enraged communities. A stunned nation. But then, no concrete action. And things quiet down, until the next gunman comes along. And the movie reel plays itself all over again.
It’s hard to believe that these scenes keep happening in this the third millennium. And harder still to contemplate that they are taking place in arguably the most advanced society on earth, where human life is supposed to be held sacrosanct, and that safeguarding everyone’s lives, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the main thrusts of the leaders of state. And yet they did, just last week, in a school in the state of Florida, in the United States of America.
On time.com last Feb. 14 and 18, Lisa Marie Segarra, Katie Reilly, Eli Meixler, and Jennifer Calfas reported that the suspect in the Florida shooting had confessed.
“Nikolas Cruz, 19, told police he was responsible for the shooting and added that he hid extra ammunition in his backpack and shot students in the hallways and on school grounds, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.
Israel also revealed Cruz’s bizarre movements in the hour after he allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 and wounding others.”
One would think that the solution is simple here. Just make owning guns illegal for most people. And enforce the ban so strictly that there is little chance any mentally-ill person could get their hands so easily on a deadly weapon. But in today’s United States of America, this is easier said than done.
While the rest of the world looks in awe at America’s technological marvels, its well-paved streets, brightly-lit cities, its fertile farms, and its abundant treasury, they also recoil in horror at the country’s attitude about guns; that in this day and age, with the world’s strongest army at its disposal, it should still find the need, much less the motivation, to allow its citizens the unfettered access to the deadliest firearms known to mankind.
The AR-15 is a deadly thing. No ifs and buts about it. In times of war, the injuries this firearm causes are horrific, at the best of times. And so quite why a weapon of this nature should be allowed to get into the hands of ordinary civilians, never mind ones with questionable psychological profiles, is beyond the comprehension of normal human beings.
The US was a frontier state, to be sure. It was founded by hardy pioneers, who shot their way through wild animals and equally wild bandits. Without the gun, they say, there would be no America.
But there are no roadway bandits these days that law enforcers would not be able to handle. No grizzlies showing up unexpectedly in some random backyard. And the US armed forces is the strongest this world has ever seen.
And so why are civilians required to have guns again? I can’t think of a good reason. Because really, there is none. Rather, the clear and present danger seems to be, with the gun, soon there may be no more America.