Kat Piantka | Newsroom Manager & Head Editor
September 20, 2024
The ongoing debate on gun violence is continuing to raise controversy among the American people as school shootings and threats of shootings heighten panic among students and parents alike, leaving many concerned about whether their child’s life will be at risk every time they walk onto a school campus. On September 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia CNN News reported that a 14-year-old teenage boy killed two fourteen-year-old students and two teachers, leaving nine others wounded with an AR-15 style rifle. This young boy, barely a teen, attained ownership of the AR-15 style rifle as a Christmas present from his dad. In no world should it be legal for a teenager to own such a gun, and no parent should be allowed to purchase this deadly weapon for their child. This recent Georgia school shooting is marked as the deadliest of the forty-five school shootings that have occurred thus far in 2024.
Junior Kai Wells expresses her concern over the growing threat of school shootings as they “have come to define American schools,” which should never have to be a lingering fear among students. The number of school shootings is only on the rise, and this threatening national issue is only becoming more apparent. Measures must be taken to provide the people of America with peace of mind and to provide justice to families across the country whose relatives have fallen victim to gun violence.
This issue has not only affected students and countless American civilians alike, but former President and current Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, as his life has flashed before his eyes twice with two different assassination attempts. The first attempt on July 13 at a presidential campaign rally in Pennsylvania left Trump wounded. Rather than succumbing to hysteria over the fragility of his life, he transformed this vulnerable moment into a cry of patriotism and a symbol of American strength. On September 15, 2024, former President Trump was once more threatened at one of his golf courses in Florida. The American Prospect explains the situation, as a gunman was found hiding in a bush by an agent “one hole ahead of [Donald Trump].” If the shooter had not been traced, additional shots may have been fired at Donald Trump. Even after these two assassination attempts, Trump claims to continue to support the Second Amendment even though he is living proof that revisions must be made.
These three situations raise many questions on whether a ban on AR rifles should be invoked once again. In 1994, President Clinton issued a ban on assault weapons with “the support from both parties” until it expired in 2004. In eight years, gun violence reportedly dropped, but in the following decade according to the Brady Campaign it “increased by 347 percent.”
Junior Michael Havel argues that a ban on assault weapons would “greatly reduce the number of injuries and fatalities” and overall gun violence in the United States of America. If both political parties could agree on some ban on assault rifles, perhaps legislation could be introduced in the coming year. Gun violence carried out by assault rifles only continues to heighten, endangering the lives of all Americans on both sides of the political spectrum. The American Prospect reports that two-thirds of the American population is in favor of banning assault rifles. A ban would still allow Americans to own a “gun to hunt or for personal protection” claims Democrat vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, but not assault rifles which are used solely for mass killing.
The world we live in today is very different from the one when the Second Amendment was created, so the Second Amendment needs to be updated to reflect the dangers of this new world and to provide safety to the American people. The American people cannot continue to be at constant risk of death: whether that may be a student or teacher in a classroom, or a presidential candidate at a political rally, or taking a day off to golf. It is time for legislation revisions to be made to the vague second amendment of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” which expresses no restrictions on a national age limit on ownership of guns, no qualifications that must be met, or background checks needed before willingly giving an individual a deadly weapon.
Most importantly, mandating a ban on the sale and use of assault rifles to strictly those solely in government or military positions. With this ban despite J.D. Vance’s claims, school shootings may no longer have to be a “fact of life” in America. Rather the people of America can live free from the lingering threats of gun violence that are growing exponentially each year. If this trend continues how many more lives will be at risk, and families will have to mourn the death of their innocent children? Enough is enough, laws must be set in place to end this chaos before assault rifle violence is considered characteristic of America.
Leave a Reply