Leah Lievrouw
Editor-in-Chief
When 20 first graders were murdered at their elementary school, I was twelve years old. Sandy Hook, more so than any of the other 15 major school shootings that have occurred in my lifetime, really stuck with me. I remember watching the small kids be- ing quickly led away from the scene, holding each other’s shoulders in a line the same way my classes did when
I was their age going to music class together. I watched parents sob and scream for their dead children. Some kids were too young to realize what exactly was happening and looked aloof while their parents crushed their tiny bodies in a hug. My brother was the same age as those dead children. This event would make me the angriest I’d ever been.
I watched the politicians that are supposed to represent me and my family, either ignore the issue or blame other factors. Ted Cruz used his inaction as a campaign tool, his ironic super pac ad actually bragging.
“Ted Cruz makes things happen. … After Sandy Hook, Ted Cruz stopped Obama’s push for new gun-control laws.”
There’s nothing unique about the Parkland shooting. Outcasted teenager gets a hold of a gun he shouldn’t have, takes out frustration on innocent lives, the number of casualties varies. What is different, however, is the fallout. Students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School along with victims parents and other gun control advocates have banded together to form Never Again MSD, an organization dedicated to reducing gun-related violence.
Regular school shootings are a reality that today’s kids are growing up with. Inaction is what we’ve always known. The current leaders of this country don’t give a damn about what’s happening to these kids. If they did the problem would have gone away after Columbine.
The idea of arming teachers is comical. No offense to any of my previous teachers, but I wouldn’t trust a single one with a gun. And the teachers don’t want them either.
The gun control debate is at an unusual crossroads in its development. 20 small children murdered in their classrooms was probably the last chance there was of quick, wholesale gun policy change. There is no telling what it will actually take to get comprehensive gun control legislation.
Even something as simple as a firearm database seems impossible at this point.
In 1996, Australia experienced the worst mass shooting in Austrailian history and the 15th deadliest ever. 35 murdered and 23 wounded at a tourist attraction at Port Arthur, Tasmania. Conservative leaders of Australia’s legislative body led the charge on banning assault-style weapons, bravely going against
their constituents. This was political suicide, but being reelected wasn’t their concern. It was the safety of the people they represented. Unlike the cravens that are American congressmen, Australian politicians respect the privilege of authority and responsibility to act in the best interest of the people.
Accepted NRA campaign donations by Texas representatives in the 2018 midterm election cycle alone.
Information from OpenSecrets
Guess which was around when the second amendment was written? Photos courtesy of yoursecondamendment.com and muzzle-loaders.com.
The Australian government bought back semi-automatic rifles and instituted a coherent and logical system of tracking gun ownership. The right to own and use firearms was not infringed, and they have had a total of zero mass shootings since.
John Paul Stevens, the namesake of the Northside high school, was a supreme court justice for 35 years, a lifelong conservative centrist. Most consider Justice Stevens above partisanship, he defended the constitution above all in his time as justice. He will not, however, defend the second amendment.
According to Stevens, the second amendment was never intended for civilians to overthrow a tyrannical government. It was put in the constitution before the U.S. had a military large enough to defend the country.
“Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that “a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century,” Stevens said.