America, What the Hell?

The Time Has Come to Finally Address the Nation’s Gun Crisis

Emily Quan, Staff Writer

In 1999, our country was shaken by what was then the deadliest school shooting in our history; Columbine. This sort of massacre was unprecedented; an event that rattled the country and brought students and parents to the edge about the safety of our kids in schools.

Three years prior, across the globe in Australia, a similar massacre took place. In April of 1996, twenty-eight year old Martin Bryant opened fire on a crowd in Port Arthur, killing 35 and injuring 23. Within the same year of the shooting, the Australian government issued a ban on semi-automatic and pump action firearms, such as the one used by Bryant.

They also implemented a system where the government would buy such weapons off of the holders to encourage their surrender. These laws were passed to the overwhelming support of the nation.

Yet, in America, 19 years after Columbine, an event in which 13 were killed and 21 injured, it is no longer one of the ten deadliest shootings in America. Since 1999, mass shootings have killed 58 at the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, 49 at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 32 at Virginia Tech, 27 at Sandy Hook Elementary school, 26 at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, 14 in San Bernardino, California, and, most recently, 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This list represents only the deadliest shootings, but many others have died in smaller sprees.

When a nation’s mass shooting death list is comprised of an incomplete and impersonal list of numbers representing victims, who, if named, could easily fill an entire page of this newspaper, it’s time for change. Australia had one major massacre and immediately saw to it that reform took place. Since then, that 1996 shooting massacre remains its deadliest. America continues to outdo itself with events considered the “deadliest shooting in American history.”

At this point, we’ve been inundated with the arguments on gun reform from both the left and the right as each responds to another mass shooting. However, that’s all it’s ever been: arguments. These arguments and proposals are felled faster than they’re drawn up.

After each shooting, this occurs and the nation is left to ponder one question: Why don’t they just do something?

The sad reality is, nothing can be done. Ceasing the sale of military grade weapons in shops is a step in the right direction, but the weapons are already out there. Private person to person gun sales can still take place. The seed has been planted in the heads of the killers: procure a weapon and slaughter. Since the Florida shooting in February, there have been at least seventeen attempts at copycat crimes.

Unfortunately, after the atrocity of Columbine nineteen years ago, a seed was planted, and now it’s grown into an uncontrollable mess of thorns and thickets. It seems we’ll never get to the root of the issue.

In Australia, they pulled the roots when they started to grow. They prevented the spread. In America, we let it slide. We let them grow. We thought “it’s just a little weed, it won’t take over.” But anyone who’s ever gardened knows that weeds spread, and they spread fast, and once they’re there, they’re hard to get rid of, especially if you attack them with only platitudes and memorials.

Here in America, we’re still arguing about where the roots are. Is it mental health? Is it guns? It doesn’t matter; pull them all! However, pull all you want, but they’re both still there. They’re both running rampant through our so-called great nation.

Sadly, mental health reform and gun reform are not and will never be as simple as pulling weeds from a garden. Remedying this endemic requires compromise and drastic action; two things that may never happen. At the risk of sounding like a nihilist, I don’t think anything will happen regarding guns in America. Americans love guns. American culture is guns. Australian culture is not. That’s why Australia and nearly every other developed country in the world does not have this issue.

That’s why every other developed country looks at America and its teenagers committing mass murder on the reg’ and says “what is wrong with these gun toting fools?” That’s why one half of America is saying “what the hell” and the other half turns away with nothing to say.