After Oregon shooting, gun issue sparks debate

By: Abbey Carlson

In America, feeling safe is supposed to be easy. We have been taught for years that the United States is the safest place in the world, but how can that be true when the issue of guns is growing after fellow Americans commit mass murders? Why have we let getting ahold of a gun become so easy and accessible?

Twenty first graders. Nine church goers. Twelve innocents in a movie theater. These are all just three examples of mass shootings that have resulted in a nation’s worth of grief. How many more deaths can we take before we step up and take a stand for gun control?

Many conservatives have the all or nothing thinking. They think that we who want gun control believe that we shouldn’t have guns at all, that they should all be banned, but what I’m proposing is stricter laws. Make guns less accessible, do more thorough background checks and support the invention of a “smart gun.”

This smart gun would take lots of work and actual effort, but if we succeed, both sides would potentially get what they want. A compromise. A smart gun could be programmed to its buyer and its buyer only. After doing a background check on the buyer to determine if their records are clean, gun sellers could take their fingerprint and program the gun so the buyer’s fingerprint is needed whenever he or she wants to use the gun. This would eliminate anyone wanting to steal it and prevent everyone who isn’t authorized from shooting it.

Too many kids on the street are getting busted for having guns. What does this tell us as a nation? We need to focus more on the consequences of having illegal weapons. Instead of imprisoning people for nonviolent offenses, we need to pay attention to those who are illegally selling and harboring deadly weapons, and the trigger lock would be an effective start on which both sides should be able to compromise.

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