Is it Really Guns?

“Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun” -Don Marquis (Donald Robert Perry Marquis was a humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright)

Alyssa Greenway, Journalist

   In the last seven months, there have been a series of mass shootings that have occurred in America. There was a mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 and wounded 489 people, a shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 and left many wounded.

   Since many of these events have happened, people have made hasty decisions and opinions about guns, and wanting better gun control  to protect their children; however, in the end, it isn’t the guns that should be regulated, it’s who has them. A gun can’t kill people by itself. It’s the person behind the trigger whether they are mentally ill, or just pure evil. It isn’t the gun.

  The 2nd amendment was made in a time when citizens had to be ready to protect their rights versus the British, and that’s why they had guns in their homes, and the law was created in the Constitution.

  Since the school shooting in Florida, there have been several walkouts protesting for more protection in schools, and gun-regulations. A recent walkout was created by a former student at Stoneman Douglas High School, protesting for gun control like more policemen at schools to prevent these issues because her best friend had been one of the 17 victims.  

   As President of the United States, many are looking to Trump as a beckon call to help them on their wants and needs; however, Trump has other opinions that have upset many Americans. Trump doesn’t believe that there needs any rash gun control, but in fact more guns.

  He thinks teachers that are qualified should be able to carry a gun in school in order to protect the students if something were to come up; however, the chances of the teachers being the shooter could increase if they get mad enough.

  Democrats, on the other hand, would rather confiscate all the guns which would leave the bad guys with these weapons, and innocents defenseless. No matter what they do, people will always find a way to get things whether it’s guns or drugs.

  Guns should only be regulated rather then taken away. The Second Amendment serves as the legal basis for the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” and if they try to take this away people will go into chaos and protest.

  An anonymous teacher at PVHS emphasized, “I believe that people will be violent by any means, however, we study and adapt cars to make them safer. We should do so with guns.”

  We should make a regulation of more in-depth background checks and redo them every five years to insure that guns are not in the wrong hands. This is one of the main issues that humans face and we aren’t really consistent in this area.

  There are plenty of natural disasters that kill thousands of people without us turning against one another. We need to love those close, make friends with that new kid rather than go to violence because people never know when they’ll be gone from the world.

Guns aren’t what kill us, it’s the criminals around us that take the lives of others rather then being peaceful. We shouldn’t take the guns away, we should take these people away and try to stop them before it does escalate into catastrophic.