Parkland Shooting: What Do We Do Now?
- Don Juice
- Feb 27, 2018
- 3 min read
Almost two weeks ago we had yet another mass shooting. This time the location was Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and sadly 17 people were gunned down by a guy named Nickolas Cruz. He was eventually captured and in the aftermath, we learned some interesting details. Multiple tips had been sent to the FBI about this deranged man and they still failed to take action against him. Also, we come find out that a school resource officer that was present during the attack didn’t even respond to the shooting and he eventually resigned out of his own embarrassment. So that’s that problem, but then there’s the problem of what comes next as far as solutions go.
Every time we go through these types of massacres, those that don’t want to deal with gun control always talk about mental health. Sure we can improve our mental health system but that’s a not core problem. According to Steven Ronik, CEO of Henderson Behavioral Health “We spend around 7 percent GDP on mental health and most other nations spend between 6 percent and 8 percent. And rates of mental health professionals per capita are also very similar to Western European countries and other developed nations. Essentially, the United States mental health system is not appreciably better or worse than the rest of high-resource countries.” There’s nothing wrong with looking at mental health and looking for ways for improvements, however, it’s just kicking the can down the road.
The problems, in particular, is the use automatic weapons, the ability to convert semi-automatics to almost full auto, the bump stocks and a large amount of ammo that can be purchased. Now, president Trump has signed a memo that calls for the ban of bump stocks, more extensive background checks, and raising the age limit to purchase firearms to 21 which I give him credit for, however, his idea of arming teachers is asinine in my opinion because teachers are not supposed to be trained to kill their students, they’re there to teach. Also, it's important to point out that Trump got rid of an Obama era regulation that limited the ability of certain mentally ill people getting guns. But the highlight of the story is the kids who survived this massacre and are trying their best usher in change. Students like Cameron Kasky, Emma Gonzalez, and David Hogg who have become activist and have taken their cause to the media starting a group called Never Again MSD. There is a planned march for March 24th by the group and many celebs have donated and shown support. The group is also rallying against NRA donations to politicians, which is something that I've been writing about for years because at the end of the day it always comes back to money in politics.
When it comes to gun control I've always been torn because I can understand both sides and I don’t have a clear-cut solution. Simply put banning weapons is going to depend on how they are classified and that just leads to another problem. The best thing that can happen in my view is better background checks, banning the bump stocks, and limiting the number of magazines a person can legally own. Along with requiring a license to get a gun similar to the way you need one to legally drive a car. In the end, however, it’s up to Congress to make a decision but these kids are not letting up on their case for gun control.
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