In a span of three years, our nation has been shaken again and again by what has felt like one senseless tragedy after another, from Tucson to Aurora to Newtown to Boston.
On Wednesday, Washington became the site of our country’s latest misfortune. This time, the culprit was different and the act wasn’t a violent one, but it sent another demoralizing blow at America, just the same.
With recent mass shooting survivors and family members of those killed watching from the Senate gallery, and the ears of an anxious nation tuned in, upwards of 42 senators shot down what has been a bipartisan effort to discover ways of preventing acts of violence like the one that left 20 children and six adults dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School this past December.
Despite an overwhelming consensus among the American public supporting the call for greater gun control, upwards of 42 senators listened to the cries of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association instead. In folding to their own politically rooted fears, those senators disregarded the very legitimate fears of a still-recovering nation, and stalemated the potential for even small margins of a progress that is so desperately needed.
According to an article in Thursday’s New York Times, aides to the senators in support of gun control said that the only thing that might now change the minds of their colleagues who voted down the proposals would be future “outside circumstances,” i.e., yet another mass shooting.
That is a terrifying notion.
My father works at a courthouse in the city where I grew up. One morning last fall, my mom called to tell me that a man with a gun had made it into the courthouse lobby. The man fired several shots, littering the lobby walls with bullet holes as he tried to press through to the bustling courtroom where my dad sat. The man injured two court officers before one officer’s bullets found the shooter, killing him.
I was a firm supporter of gun control even before the day a man opened fire in the place where someone I love spends the majority of his week.
Before getting my own glimpse at the senseless horror that so many other Americans have experienced tenfold, and being grazed by the very real potential of a devastating personal tragedy like the ones so many have been forced to cope with, I realized the need for reformed gun laws. It didn’t take a personal tragedy. It took a look around at the thousands of Americans suffering or grieving as a result of gun violence and the flimsy laws that make it easy. The need for the establishment of tighter gun laws seems like common sense.
It shouldn’t take any more personal tragedies for people to see the light. In fact, most Americans already do.
So many people have shown courage in the face of horrible situations that could have been prevented by stricter gun control laws. In the face of a country calling out for change, it’s time for members of Congress to stop folding to selfish fears and do the same.