/Portals/2/logos/__TFMF_awg2mxmj4guui055fgdoda45_1debfa91-7106-46b6-abab-f49cb21ea322_0___Selected.jpg en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Tue, 21 May 2013 12:03:56 GMT 15 By Jobel Kyle Vecino Hercules High School
If you’ve watched television, read a newspaper or been online, you know what happened on the Saturday morning of Jan. 8, when a supposedly insane person shot his congresswoman and fellow neighbors in Tuscon, Ariz., in broad daylight. President Barack Obama declared the event “a national tragedy.” What you might not know is that just three days later an El Cerrito High School student was killed in a drive-by shooting on his grandmother’s front yard for unknown reasons. While in this case the shooters were found and detained, many criminals get away unscathed. Such shootings have prompted a heavily polarized debate throughout the country over the right to bear arms. This right is so important that it is embodied in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Amid numerous gun-related tragedies and resulting controversies, many different people continue to defend the right. Powerful organizations such as the National Rifle Association keep lobbyists in Washington busy pushing the federal government to keep restrictions on firearms loose. I think it is fair that people may buy rifles, handguns and any personal weapon that could be used to protect themselves in case of emergency. And it is fair that people buy them for sport. From experience, I know target shooting is incredibly enjoyable. Now that I have made it clear that I am no gun hater, I will say this: The sale of firearms must be regulated. It is simple, really. Why would anyone decide to sell a gun to a person who might have extreme mental illness, such as the Arizona gunman, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Columbine shooters, John Lennon’s killer and former President Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin? Anyone who seeks to buy a gun should be subjected to serious mental examination as well as a thorough background check. While this plan may have hiccups (such as people buying their way through the system or faking sanity, which is extremely rare and difficult), the ends justify the means. It is a course of action that should have been taken long ago and may have prevented many deaths. Getting a gun is just too easy. A small background check and good to go (and of course the background check can easily be bypassed with fake information). Rather, an in-person examination could deter fraud, or in lieu of doing it in-person, a qualifying examination could confirm the buyer is sane. It is not the perfect solution. In an ideal world, the best and only solution would be to educate people about making the right decisions. But this is not an ideal world and sometimes, people do horrible things. Sometimes people, not just Americans, have to take the appropriate measures to ensure that such tragedies will not happen. But this is the challenge for Americans specifically, whether or not everyone can accept harsher requirements for obtaining guns for the sake of preventing needless bloodshed. ]]> Sat, 19 Mar 2011 17:57:02 GMT