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Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Editorial: Will the US ever change?

The news of at least 59 people being killed in the worst mass shooting in US history was everywhere yesterday.

News sources were doing everything they could to figure the situation out, spin it locally and come up with a new angle to the story. The shooter’s brother was talked to, there were stories about guns and ammunition found in the shooter’s room. Hell, some sites had live updates like it was the Olympics, spilling out any information they could confirm.

But what I didn’t hear being said harshly enough is, “when will the United States learn its lesson?”

It seems there’s a pattern of the United States — and a good majority of its citizens — to deny any form of logical sense regarding gun control laws.

It’s a tragedy.

So is Nevada, so was Orlando, so was Aurora, and the list goes on — but the real tragedy is these incidents could have been prevented with some real gun control.

Americans seem to think they need guns for protection. But as incidents like this prove, they're actually putting themselves in more danger.

There are some major priorities to sort out when Kinder Eggs are illegal because they’re a choking hazard, yet you can purchase a handgun at a pawn shop.

Wake up, America.

You want to protect people from potentially choking, but you’re okay with laws that allow a deranged person to enter a theatre with an assault rifle and kill more children than Kinder has in history — only three, by the way.

You’re okay with laws that protected the rights of a 65-year-old man to buy automatic weapons he then used to murder 59 people and injure hundreds in a matter of minutes.

You go around claiming you’re not okay with the actual act, but the truth is you are, so long as it doesn’t violate your right to have guns — and at this point, anything other than calling together for strict gun laws proves everything I just said. So again, when will you learn?

Sure, while plenty of people might be sane and have no intentions of murdering a crowd of people, but none of those people are invincible to mental disease. Anyone can develop problems in their brain (plenty would claim anybody supporting these gun laws already has a few) and what then?

There is no excuse for being the only nation this happens so frequently in. Man up.

I hope this incident, being the biggest single-man mass shooting in their history, will also break another record, creating the biggest backlash to lenient gun laws the United States has ever seen.

I doubt it though — in fact, I’m sure nothing will change.

One thing is for sure; I’ve rarely been more proud to be a Canadian.

I feel safe walking down my streets, and if I do get shot by a lunatic and end up bleeding in a hospital bed, it won’t be my life savings the gunman also puts a hole in — but that’s another story for another day.

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