Eight wounded. Twelve dead. The President has given his obligatory condolences; investigators have ferreted out every last possibility of mental illness and forewarnings that could have prevented this tragedy. News reporters and analysts continue to speculate about conspiracies, fallacies in the government systems, anything that will bring in viewers and money. Everyone is pointing fingers and demanding, "Who gave Aaron Alexis his gun? What happened to the background checks? Why didn't we stop this?"
How long will it take Americans to realize that this isn't just a tragic phenomenon? How many more Navy Yards, Sandy Hooks, and Auroras will it take? And those names are only the ones that made national news. According to the Huffington Post, there have been nearly 250 mass shootings (defined as a shooting in which at least 4 people are injured or killed) in 2013- we've only had 260 days in the year.
And the best part? We armed every single one of those shooters.
America has long cherished its beloved Second Amendment- the right to bear arms. But at what point is enough, enough? We have an average of almost 1 mass shooting per day, and our solution is to supply everyone with more guns.
The NRA's standing argument is that arming upstanding civilians will serve as a deterrent for criminals who would otherwise attempt mass murder. And, in the event of a shooting, they claim having guns at hand will help to quickly neutralize the threat.
That's all well and good, except for the fact that this latest shooting happened in the freaking Navy Yard, and twelve people still died.
Not only that, but this "solution" of allowing Americans to easily access firearms is simply damage control. Why aren't we considering prevention -AKA, not giving people the guns in the first place- instead?
If the American people must have their guns, then at least have them pass a strict psychological test in order to get a firearms license, and repeat the test every time they want to buy a gun. If they don't pass, they can't buy the gun. Simple.
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