IAN BENSON
Our nation needs to change its gun legislation in the wake of a shooting, or in this case, multiple shootings. Between the shootings in Aurora, Colorado, the Wisconsin Sikh temple and the recent incident near the Empire State Building, in addition to countless other acts of gun violence in our lifetimes, action must be taken to curb these incidents. The second amendment is, in many ways, a relic of a bygone era, with the right to bear arms being important for such reasons as a deterrent for a tyrannical government, defense against an invasion and participation in law enforcement. Modern America, however, has phased out these justifications. The only people who buy guns to defend against a potential invasion are usually considered crazy by the general population and the only vigilantes the American people have condoned are fictional heroes that tend to shy away from guns. There is no justifiable reason then why someone such as James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, or any citizen of the United States for that matter, should be able to purchase a weapon such as Smith & Wesson M&P15, a semi-automatic weapon whose one sole purpose is to kill people. Nor is there a reason for him to also have a tactical shotgun and two hand guns. They are nothing but weapons of war, designed only to create death and destruction, and have no place in the hands of citizens, especially in a society that considers itself so civilized. In fact, in comparison to other nations, the United States firearm laws are a joke. The United Kingdom has tight gun control, where fully automatic and self-loading weapons larger than .22 calibers are banned outright and pistols are limited to a maximum .22 and .357 caliber depending on the barrel length. Other guns are permitted with good reason, such as hunting, target shooting and antiques, but not for self-defense. Even though the majority of the U.K. police force does not carry firearms, with only around 7,000 armed officers, and yet in 2009 there were .073 recorded homicides committed with a gun per 100,000 people. In the U.S., it was 3 per 100,000. Another difference from the U.S. is that the U.K. only featured two shooting sprees by men holding a licensed firearm in the second half of the 20th century, a stark departure from the U.S. The recent shootings at the Empire State Building also indicated that the presence of armed police do not make a situation safer. All nine individuals wounded in the shooting were hit by police gunfire. These were men trained to handle such a situation and all they did was prove that more guns do not help, and that people are going to wind up hurt. A frightening statistic that has been put forth by WBEZ in Chicago is that more than 5,000 people have been killed in gun related violence in Chicago, compared to slightly more than 2,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The reality that gun violence in an American city is outpacing a war zone is indicative of all of the problems created by American gun legislation, or truly the lack thereof. A harder stance must be taken, ideally from the model of the United Kingdom, where firearms are tightly controlled by the law, and those weapons that serve no purpose other than for murder are outlawed. Otherwise, tragedies similar to Aurora, Colorado and the Wisconsin Sikh temple will happen again. When a new tragedy strikes, we cry out for the government to do something, start affixing blame on violent movies or games or music, but never take the time to fix the obvious problem. Instead, we should act, and use this situation as a chance to correct errors that persist and prevent anything like these travesties from happening again.