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The Elephant in the Room

In 2018, The Washington Post stated that school shootings were "a uniquely American crisis," and they're absolutely right. An old proverb states that "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." But is there any proverb for a country that's been fooled more than 1,300 times? The United States is one of the only countries in the world where our leaders time and time again do not understand the benefits of gun control. In April 1996, Australia had one of its worst mass shooting events ever, in which a man killed 35 people and wounded 18 others at the popular tourist location of Port Arthur. And what happened after? The country created the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), which banned the ownership of automatic and semi-automatic and ended up destroying more than a million firearms. Just recently, in 2019, New Zealand banned semi-automatic weapons and magazines with more than ten rounds after the Christchurch mosque shootings. However, none of these measures ever seem to occur in our country. It's becoming easier for mentally disturbed kids to get access of firearms, and this can be seen from the Oxford shooting that happened just last week. The shooter's father had bought him the gun used to commit the shooting just four days before the event, and both parents were completely unhinged by their child's disturbing behavior. When notified by school officials that their child was searching up ammunition during school, the mom texted him saying, "LOL I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught." Until our government implements some form of gun control, I'm not sure these horrific events can be stopped in the future.

This reminds me of the epigraph in A Raisin in the Sun by Langston Hughes. In his poem, Hughes talks about the different possibilities for what might happen to "a dream deferred." The dream of so many Americans is for their children to be able to feel safe at schools. However, this dream hasn't been realized yet. This dream "just sags / Like a heavy load," and it continues to be the elephant in the room that legislators fail to address. Our society needs to change so that the lives of innocent children can be saved. 

#Oxfordstrong


Comments

  1. Varun SukhavasiDecember 5, 2021 at 12:45 PM

    I completely agree, the lack of action in the United States is extremely concerning as more innocent people will die due to constant argument. The fact is gun rights is an extremely polarizing issue and until more people understand the fallacies of allowing everyone to own a gun then perhaps change will occur. It has been 9 years since Sandy Hook, and yet no change. Perhaps we must wait until more children lie dead and their parents mourn what could have been.

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  2. Srivatsav BendiDecember 5, 2021 at 1:31 PM

    This was a powerfully written post Mr.Suthy. Your rhetorical question at the beginning was eye-opening and I am simply in awe that we've made the same mistake over a thousand times. The cycle repeats itself - A shooting happens, the media discusses its events, lawmakers discuss the possibility of effecting change, and slowly everyone forgets about the issue until another shooting happens. As Varun eloquently pointed out in his comment, unfortunately for many of us, the only thing we can do is wait until the next set of children die and hope our leaders do something then.

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  3. Varun NDecember 5, 2021 at 6:09 PM

    Honestly the sole reason gun's have been so hotly debated as a topic is because they are the second amendment. I don't mean that they are necessarily important, but simply because they are involved in the Bill of Rights and by proxy the Constitution, trying to limit guns could be argued as defacing the Constitution, certainly a vile and disgusting argument in the face of the tragedies that have occurred but an argument that still has validity. The worst part is this argument isn't even what the people who use it believe. And I say that meaning that the staunchest refuters of gun control simply have other motives, such as money and power at stake that they don't want to sacrifice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yousef Al-AniDecember 5, 2021 at 6:25 PM

    I totally agree that school shootings have continuously gone unnoticed amongst our leaders in government, and it shouldn’t take 1300 of them to begin waking people up. I like the “fool me once..” quote, as it truly sums up what is happening in front of our eyes. How many school shootings will it take to stop this seemingly exclusive American problem?

    ReplyDelete

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