What are guns worth in our society today? Protection? A yearly hunt? Pleasure?
A line has to be drawn somewhere.
With all the school shootings happening, weapon possession needs to be limited. Not only are the gunmen taking innocent lives, they are taking people's right, and privilege, to be safe.
A school, especially a higher education school, is a place where every person has the right to learn and to teach safely in both physical and mental capacities.
With the Trolley Square shootings that happened in 2007, the gunman took away people's right to shop in safety. A public place belongs to everyone, not just one person, or a group of people.
Many victims and witnesses of a shooting have a lot of mental problems afterward because they are privy to watching or being a part of it. Many have the thought, "Why them? Why me? How did that happen?" No one should have to witness that.
Where is it that the line is drawn in relation to gun laws? How do you make a gunman of a school or other public shooting who has shot himself afterward pay for what he did? How do you give a victim's family back what they lost? You can't, which makes a shooting all the worse.
(Thursday) afternoon, Northern Illinois University witnessed another school shooting, the fourth this week. Six were killed, including the gunman. Another 16 were injured.
On Feb. 8, at Louisiana Technical College, a woman shot two fellow students to death before taking her own life.
In Memphis, Tenn., a 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically wounding a fellow student Monday during a high school gym class.
The 15-year-old victim of a shooting at an Oxnard, Calif., junior high school has been declared brain dead.
So why is it that so many people still look to guns for their protection and safety? How is it that guns can be obtained as easily as they are now? Shouldn't there be more laws and more background checks for a person to obtain a gun? Why is it that mentally ill people, or previously mentally ill people, can walk into a gun shop, and purchase a gun so easily?
How many more people are going to have to die unnecessarily before harsher laws are obtained?
Let's make it harder for anyone to purchase a gun. Let's make it a lot harder for them to obtain a weapon, if at all. Let's make it so there are (fewer) guns out in the world.
The more out in the world, the more chance there is for the owner of that gun to turn it on other human beings.
Let's bring that number down, and save some innocent lives.
Bree Dalling is a junior interdisciplinary studies major from Plano, Texas. She can be contacted at bree_dalling@musician.org.
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