This morning, a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut left 27 people dead, including 20 children and several staff members. The shooter was also found dead in the school, and is suspected to have committed suicide. Coming just months after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, this is the second most deadly shooting in US history.
A teary-eyed President Obama proclaimed of the event, “Our hearts are broken today” and stated that
“I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between five and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own." Truly, this is a tragic day.
So what do you think? How will this, as well as the other shootings in the past few years, affect US policy? How has it already affected us? As we mourn the loss of these children and adults, what can we as a nation do to help prevent more such tragedies?
14 comments:
In my personal opinion, I think it is very difficult to prevent these types of events from occurring. A lot of these events happen spontaneously and often is difficult to see it coming. One way to help solve the problem is that we could add more security to the schools. However, this could anger students because it could take away freedom in schools. I am certain that the U.S government is trying everything in its power to stop these horrible events from occurring. But there is only so much they can do to stop these events.
It's slightly confusing to me as the Sandy Hook Elementary School had just implemented new security measures to prevent strangers from strolling in. However, there are also reports that the gunman's mother was a teacher at the school, and may have been one of the primary targets, leading me to believe that there was possibly a deeper plot involved in this senseless massacre of innocent civilians.
I personally have doubts that this shooting would change US policy, although it might bring the idea of gun control and a reintroduction of an assault weapons ban back to the forefront of politics at least for the next few weeks. As we've seen in the immediate aftermath of tragic shootings in the past, a majority of citizens may sway towards gun control right after, but trend back towards the "Oh, this was just an isolated incident that will never happen in my community" type of view as the incident dies down in news coverage. Rarely has any legislation materialized after such tragic events and it doesn't seem like that will change any time in the near future. I believe that as of right now, the best way to prevent such tragedies as a nation lies only in the hands of increasing security measures and adequate lockdown preparation.
I think it'll make various people talk about gun control again (like Bob Costas from Ian's post). But aside from that, I think nothing will happen, despite how terribly tragic this shooting is. People are probably going to be too lazy to try to write up a bill and try to get it through the legislative process. But more than that, the issue is that it's hard to make laws that can stop this sort of thing from happening. It's already against the law to bring guns to schools, and aside from banning guns altogether, I don't see how we can prevent people from using them. And we can't exactly ban guns because people have their rights and stuff, and anyway, people will still find ways to get their hands on guns if they really want to.
I believe that these kinds of tragedies are unacceptable; they have happened too many times already. In the past, not much has been done to control lethal weapons like guns. There is a good reason why other countries don't permit their citizens to own guns. I know that the right to bear arms is included in our Bill of Rights, however keeping this "right" should not cost us the lives of thousands of people murdered every year. I believe that it should be illegal to purchase/ own a gun. Many argue that guns provide "protection" and "security", but guns were invented only for the purpose of killing and nothing more.I agree with President Obama that we should disregard the political debate concerning gun control and pass laws and regulations now. However I still do not see other politicians agreeing with gun control as a result of their narrow-mindedness. They will slow down the process of securing the safety of citizens. The results of their stubbornness up until now has led to tragic consequences such as this shooting.
I was listening to NPR as I drove home today, and I can't find exactly what I was listening to online, so there's no link, but basically the gist of what the commentators were saying was this: while these mass shootings always garner a lot of attention, there is no evidence that support of gun control rises after these tragedies. In fact, support for looser gun regulations has been at an all time high lately (no specific time period was given.) It's news like this that just makes me want to smack my head against the keyboard. While it's true that the problem behind these shootings lies more in this country's attitudes towards mental health issues and violence, it saddens me to see that there isn't more support for anything that has a chance at mitigating this problem.
Paragraphs 3-5 on This article provide some very interesting insight to the coverage of the shooting (or any shooting in general). In the paragraphs, it refers to the Columbine shooting and talks about if violent movies lead people commit such acts.
"'...If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory.'"
I think this is more than likely the thought process of someone who is about to commit a school shooting. It should make us wonder if violent movies or lax gun-control are really the problems. Instead, maybe we should begin focusing more on helping kids that exhibit these warning signs that we as a society have come to ignore.
I agree with Alvin that it is slightly confusing as to how the school let a stranger come in. I'd like to add that the shooter's mother, who was a teacher at the school, was not even at the school during the shooting; she was found murdered at her home. In regards to how this will affect US policy, I believe that this shooting will not greatly affect the support for more gun control. I read in an article that views on gun control laws remained mostly the same after the Aurora shooting. I think this is because that people think that those shootings could never happen to them personally, so while they feel sympathy for the victims and their families, they still feel protected from those types of horrors.
I don't think there is anything that we can really do to prevent any of these tragedies. If people really want to get a hold of a gun, they can. As with this Newtown shooting, the gunman had taken his gun from his mother, who had purchased them legally. This is only one example of those gun control laws not having any effect. Though I wish for ways that gun laws could have more control and effect on the US, it will be very hard to completely control everything.
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I really think the events that happened in Newtown are completely sickening. The fact that a man decided to go to an elementary school and start shooting is just so saddening.
The sad thing is, this probably won't change anything in Washington. With so much partisan gridlock and the NRA being extremely powerful, I dont think the policy makers will be able to do anything which is very sad.
To people who feel like there is nothing we can do, I would have to ssay I somewhat disagree. In the US, between 2006-2010, the US had 47,856 people murdered by firearm .(http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/guns-in-america-a-statistical-look/)
I do know that a lot of people love guns, but I feel like if we limited the availabity of guns and at least semi-automatic weapons, then we could possibly change the gun culture we have and that would lead to less deaths by firearms. If we are the best nation in the world, like politicians are always saying, then one would think we would be stopping problems like this.
Events like these always leave me in a sad and bitter mood. What was going on in his head is something that I don't think anyone will ever come to understand. For someone to go out and shoot little school children and teachers, there was something very, very wrong with him. We could all point fingers and say it's the guns or the videogames or whatever, but like Eddie said, these events are very hard to stop. If a deranged man wanted to go out and kill a whole bunch of people, he'll stop at nothing to get his guns, ammo, bombs etc. Putting bans on guns or censoring video games and TV will do nothing but hurt the majority of sane, law abiding citizens.
First off, the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School have my prayers. This was a disgusting act that unnecessarily claimed the lives of innocent children.
Regarding Grace's and Alvin's comments, I heard that the killer's mom used to work at the school and the staff might have known him. However, this news may be inaccurate.
As everyone is getting into the gun control debate, I'll throw in my two cents. President Obama and Congress, despite what they may say, are going to do nothing. Period. The Virginia Tech, Aurora, Columbine massacres were not enough incentive for a serious national restriction on firearms. I doubt this will change even after this sickening event.
In the words of Alfred, "Some men just want to watch the world burn." The killer, Adam Lanza (whose name was not mentioned in the blog post), was probably had not solid motivation for the murders, not that anything could justify his actions. He was probably just a twisted up pretzel who killed for the sake of it. This was an absurd action, like how Meursault decided to kill the Arab on the whim.
Back to the gun control debate. We should probably take serious efforts to ban extremely dangerous guns like the semiautomatic ones Lanza utilized. However, citizens should still be able to, if sane, use small handguns that will be enough to defend themselves against such an attack. Some efforts to restrict guns in Australia have worked, despite what anti-gun restriction advocates have said.
In conclusion, I once again hope everyone will mourn the deaths of these innocent children. The second amendment allows American citizens to bear arms, but that doesn't necessarily mean they should use them.
Also, kudos to Google for their front page tribute. Check it out.
I don't think this shooting will necessarily provide the momentum to institute new gun control laws. This is because the guns that the murderer was using were stolen from his mother and his mental stability was quite questionable. Looking back on other recent mass shootings (Colorado), the shooter has usually had severe mental issues. I think the real question is what we should do with insane people who may be threats to society instead of worrying about guns and how we can restrict them.
While I think this massacre was heartbreaking, I also think it is very difficult to prevent such types of events. I think the disturbing part is how many innocent people have been killed lately, in public places; for example, the shooting in Colorado at the Batman premier last summer. I cannot come up with a way to prevent such acts though. Should the government decide to ban all guns, I find it impossible to believe they could find every gun owner in America and confiscate their guns. As horrible as it is, I feel there really is no absolute solution to these kinds of events. Trying to prevent public massacres is similar to trying to prevent terrorism. Sophomore year in history we briefly talked about terrorism. How do you prevent it, how do you define it, what separates a religious radical from a terrorist? I think these questions can be equally asked about those who are "mentally ill" and shoot civilians. Perhaps greater focus should be put into the mentally ill and their ability to obtain guns, or to live with someone who owns a gun. More psychological analysis to the disturbed could help prevent any future instances. I am sure that Obama will come up with some kind of plan for gun control, in the meantime, I believe we should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of the disturbed for the sake of humanity.
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