Weird side effect of my mission is that I came back political as all get-out. Before, I knew it was important and felt obligated to participate as a good citisen. But somewhere in the middle of Germany and the refugee crisis and a world that is so much bigger than me, I changed. Now, I get fired up and ready to go, on fire to advocate and create change.
So what happened this week hasn't just hit me as a tragedy that I'm waiting for someone to change. It struck me as something that I need to be vocal about and campaign for and fight for change.
Sunday night, at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a country music festival, there was a shooting. Currently, there's 59 people dead and 527 more wounded in the US's deadliest mass shooting. Ever. And there is a lot of grief and rage and opinions being aired in the country right now, with the internet a place for vitriol and debate.
And here's my spiel.
As a Nevadan, I am heartbroken. It's not hard to picture it happening anywhere else, somewhere closer to home. Henderson, Reno, Elko, Wendover. We're all full of casinos and parties and festivals and people, every day. And I have friends who live in Vegas. As of yet, no one I know has been effected. But there's 586 families and communities out there that are reeling right now.
And it's terrifying to consider the fact that Americans make no progress to fix this problem. There's no "if there's a shooting," there's just, "when there's a shooting," and I've learned coping tactics in school and one time my high school was locked down for real because there was a man with a gun just a few blocks away. But it was lunchtime at an open campus school, and most of us didn't know it was a lockdown. If the situation had escalated, it would have ended heartbreakingly. That terrifies me.
If something doesn't change, I will raise my children in a place where random acts of mass-violence are inevitable and they can expect to be involved in one, even in this country that ought to be great and shining, an example for the world.
That breaks my heart.
Now is a time to mourn, to grieve, to support those effected.
But then it's time to talk solutions.
In the past few days, I've seen charts and graphs depicting America's gun problems and how many shootings we have and read opinions and ideas of what to change and how to handle this and honestly, I am so on board.
Yes, require a license. Yes, register gun buyers. Yes, a 48-hour delay. Yes, mandatory gun safety. No, silencers should not be easier to purchase. No, civilians do NOT need heavy artillery. Collectors? Fine. But they can't get ammunition. I know a lot of people have a lot of arguments for what I'm saying right now, but I don't care. I'm conservative about a lot of things, but if arguing for safety and reason puts me on the liberal side of this issue, I will stand there gladly.
Listen. I know people will claim 2nd Amendment "right to bear arms," but you know what? This is the full text:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
That was written as a direct result of what the American colonists had lived with as English citisens. Only the army could bear arms. Civilians had no way to defend themselves. The 2nd Amendment was written 200 years ago and was NOT written to allow civilians to collect hoards of heavy artillery.
Do gun control laws infringe on the right to self-defense? No. People could still obtain a gun, they'd just have to jump through a few hoops to do so. I'll always support your right to defend yourself. But I cannot support a system that allows people to easily perpetrate mass violence.
There is a time to fix things. There are things we can change. We have to look past political agendas and look at what is best for our country and for our future.
We can never bring back those who have lost their lives to gun violence. But we can take steps to prevent it from happening again. And that starts now.
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