I woke up to some very sad news. Of course, I had to go read about it. As with anything related to guns and shootings, and especially those involving children because they pull at folks’ heartstrings, I signed on to Facebook and saw a few messages about gun control.
Wisconsin somewhat recently signed into action a concealed carry law. We’re really one of  the last states to do so. There was a lot of drama surrounding it, and I had no idea we were the minority before the change. I thought everyone else was with us about concealed carrying, and I was pretty against it. But this isn’t about concealed carry. Yes, we can assume that Connecticut has a similar law just because of the numbers but, let’s be honest, making concealed carry illegal wouldn’t have changed anything.
And this post is interesting coming from me. A year ago, I wouldn’t have posted anything of this nature. I would’ve firmly been in the other camp.
Here goes.
Dude took his mother’s guns. They were legally purchased, mind you. He was probably already breaking some laws by having so many on him, but I don’t know for sure. It wouldn’t surprise me. He then killed his mother at home. That’s definitely illegal. Then, he drove to a school zone with these guns. Also illegal. No question about it. Entering that school and slaughtering those children and employees. That is also illegal but no more illegal than the string of illegal thing he’s already done.
Without a concealed carry law, he would’ve been breaking just one more law, and it wouldn’t even be the more significant law on the list. One more or less law would not have prevented this from happening — if those laws are aimed at citizens. Why? Because this sort of thing is a symptom and not the case. It is a symptom.
The cause, according to many people, is a lack of proper mental healthcare in the United States. I don’t disagree with this. I don’t know that it would have prevented this from happening 100%, but it may have gone a long way to deter the Sandy Hook school shooting and other incidents from happening. But I don’t think that’s the bigger issue.
The bigger issue is that this all started with perfectly legal activity, and that activity is the purchase of gun’s. Its easy. It’s too easy because we don’t dig into mental health histories enough, and perhaps if we had more stringent mental healthcare, there’d be more detailed histories to dig into to begin with. But guns are easy to buy. It’s easy to buy multiple guns. It’s easy to get your hands on a gun because, even if you didn’t buy one, maybe your mom did.
People use school shootings as ammunition — pardon the pun — to stoke the fire. They argue that this is exactly why you need to buy a gun. To protect your own. I disagree. Who, in their right mind, would think arming a bunch of people in a school would have made this any better?
Many people who own guns don’t own them in the right ways. They don’t keep them locked up. They don’t make sure that they’re the only people who can get to them. As long as that happens, more people buying guns won’t help. So, I guess I’d argue that licensing should be more difficult. But it’s not.
And it’s not for a reason. That reason? Firearms as an industry is fucking profitable. Not for me or you, of course, but for some guy who owns the companies or a politician who made a deal with them. Probably a middle-aged white dude. A Republican. The kind of CEO whose interest is paying less taxes than you and me. I guess I’m getting political but, perhaps, in a different way. To me, it’s easy to see that the issue isn’t gun control on a personal level but on a corporate level. Make it harder to get guns into peoples’ hands by reducing the number of firearms in circulation. Make it less profitable for the companies, and that will happen in an instant.
I’m not saying that gun trade won’t move to the black market, but it’s already there, and people like Adam Lanza don’t even have to go that far to get guns, but if he had to? Maybe that would’ve been the inconvenience that stopped him altogether or put his plan on hold long enough for someone to discover it. Maybe not. But a lack of a law that lets people carry concealed weapons wouldn’t have accomplished anything in this situation.
I know my mother wasn’t the only parent who held a child extra close last night. I know I wasn’t the only one shocked. I know that concern is pouring out from every corner of the globe. My thoughts, like yours, are with the community of Newton, Connecticut and the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook. Whatever arguments occur or changes happen as a result of this aside, that is true.