Are promoting stricter gun laws really the answer? Is this where the journey to saving lives truly begins? Or does it begin way before one steps into a store in a state that does not require you to hand over any information besides a “hey how ya doin’? I’d like to buy this gun” greeting?
States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun deaths, hence the title of the article. I am proposing that the issue of gun control in our country falls way deeper than merely altering its laws in our governmental policies.
The 26-year-old who shot and killed at least nine people while injuring many others at Umpqua Community College in Oregon on October 1st wasn’t at all the first time we experienced a tragedy alike; I say this with a heavy heart.
I’m disgusted to report that we have had over thirty-six mass shootings since Columbine, according to The Telegraph. According to my own calculations, on average, this means there have been at least three shootings a year; progressively, beginning in 2007, mass shootings increased a great deal in number each year.
Although prior to the mass killing at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut there were many other shootings, this was the first eye-opener to us as a nation at how various teens and young adults rebel against an internal, unstructured world.
This IT revolution has its positive effects on business growth as well as staying interconnected, yet the emotional and social health of human beings seems to be at stake. If it weren’t already obvious, I’m suggesting that technology today, as it continuously advances, impacts the focus of each and every one of us.
Furthermore, it deters you from focusing on the reality of your own well-being as opposed to the virtual reality one has created for themselves through social-media of any kind. What does this have to do with gun abuse and the mass killings I’m writing about? Well, it has to do with everything.
According to Harvard Magazine, Generation X, also known now as the App mindset, “motivates the youth to seek direct, quick and easy solutions- the kind of answers an app would provide.” Within this abuse of technology today comes the question of the kind of morale and structure that happens within the homes of these young adults.
Personally, I am scared to bring children into this world, although I am confident I will do my best to provide a structured environment in which my children would not at all be afraid to live in a healthy way and rebel productively.
I’m suggesting two issues here: the first is the abuse of technology, and two, putting down your phones to better involve yourself in the lives of your loved ones; it is evident we are not involved, psychologically, in the minds of the young generation and what we can do to provide a better quality of life for our neighbors, and future generations to come.
If we take a second and internalize the density of these tragedies, we would understand just how each and every one of us are neglecting to proactively and productively take control over an issue that is snowballing into an every-year-occurrence.
Furthermore, this every-year-occurrence means losing more innocent lives. In turn, we are selfishly making sure our own lives are comfortable, instead of realizing that safety is only a privilege that we will soon lose if we neglect to pay attention to the safety of not only ourselves and our loved ones, but to everyone around us.
If we wait any longer to give 100 percent of our effort to these issues, and continue to brush them under the rug, we will have no hope for our future.
Brittany Burke is a senior and an English major.
