Mass Shootings

Current Events Paper
Richard Mumford
Soc/100
Tricia Hutchins
Firearms and society, what gives? Within just the last decade there has been multiple firearm related mass shootings. From Columbine to sandy hook they have been deadly and have taken all walks of life. From small children to old adults. There is no specific target, these are people with mental illnesses that we yet not understand. What I can tell you is that this is nothing new, mass killings go back to the early 1900’s in American culture even 1800’s in the American west. There were forty one mass shootings from 1900-1980 in America. Then a sharp rise between 1980 and the year 2000, there were seventy four mass shootings. From 2000 to 2014 thirty-two mass shooting incidents.
Not because of tougher gun laws. Historical data actually shows when tougher sanctions are placed on law abiding citizen’s gun crime skyrockets. We can look at cities like Chicago for example who have strict gun regulation. In the last 3 days one has been murdered and twenty six injured. In fact Chicago has the highest rate of gun violence in the United States averaging between 450-500 gun related deaths a year. Other large cities like New York and Los Angeles also have tough gun restrictions resulting in 250-350 gun related deaths a year. With other cities that have more lenient gun laws have lower homicide rates, take New Orleans for example with 193 deaths resulting from gun violence. You can clearly see that by unrestricting firearms for law abiding citizens gun crime rates actually drop. This brings me to the topic of gun violence stopped by a gun. There has been thousands of incidents that have been either completely stopped or stopped prematurely. As in the case of the Plymouth, MA shooting. On September 11th 2012 the suspect by the name of Allabough was asked to leave the bar. He was an air force veteran with some mental discretion’s. Allabough pulled a
There have been numerous occasions where criminals are stopped in their tracks because of a fellow citizens doing his part to curb the problem. The more gun free we are the more at risk we are of allowing ourselves to be unprotected. I for one know the value of a firearm, say I go to Walmart with my son and I’m just shopping. When a crazed teen comes in opening fire on the store, seeing that I’m in Washington State which is an open carry state I can eliminate that threat and save countless life’s including my son. Say I am in a restrictive state like Illinois and I am not allowed to open carry, I have to run and hide just like everyone else. Which usually results in being wounded or being killed. There is absolutely no other way to protect yourself from a gun than from a gun. I want you to ask yourself which side of the argument you’re on now. People say guns are not safe and from a sociological perspective they are not. Why is this the case, I can tell you why because it has been feed to you in the media for years. Guns are bad, guns are violent, and most of all guns kill people. No they do not, it’s time to buck the sociology of gun belief. Guns save lives if you use them properly. Criminals