After reading about the most recent mass shooting in Oregon and a discussion in the New Yorker about the aftermath of the Charleston, NC shootings, I am pretty much ready to cry my tired eyes out this Friday afternoon. For me, gun control is really one of the most frustrating and troubling problems we are facing in this country right now. The main thought I have is: Will we EVER enact laws that start to put a real limit on the ability of Americans to buy guns?!
This article helped me to feel a little better. It was written three years ago, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, and in it, Adam Gopnik argues that 1. It is very easy to significantly reduce the number of gun-related deaths by simply making guns just a little harder to obtain, and 2. we, as a country, will probably enact legislation to do just that before too much time has passed.
Gopnik writes, "It's always hard to summon up political will for change, no matter how beneficial the change may obviously be. Summoning the political will to make automobiles safe was difficult; so was summoning the political will to limit and then effectively ban cigarettes from public places. At some point, we will become a gun-safe, and then a gun-sane, and finally a gun-free society. It's closer than you think."
I really, really, really hope he's right.
2 comments:
KB, I, too, was left with a little bit of hope after reading Gopnik's article. The Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality took me by surprise, maybe some of that secret momentum will come into play on this issue, too.
I hope!!
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