My Take: Why America must restore its assault-weapons ban
After America’s latest mass shooting, it’s amazing how fast the media found scapegoats to blame rather than assign responsibility to the gun in the troubled young man’s hands. Common sense leads to the conclusion that if there was no gun in the man’s hands, it’s likely that the attacker would have been apprehended before killing so many.
This latest mass shooting, on May 24 by an 18-year-old man, killed 19 children and two teachers and injured 17 more in a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school. Before this massacre, using one of the two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles he legally purchased on his 18th birthday, the gunman had aimed a non-fatal but bloody shot at his grandmother’s face.
In the school, officials found 315 rounds of ammunition, 142 of which were spent cartridges. Like the guns, the ammunition was purchased legally.
Nine days before this, another mass shooting occurred — this one in Buffalo, New York, when another 18-year-old man killed 10 people in a supermarket — 11 Black and two white people were shot — by bullets fired from an AR-15-style rifle.
Other recent mass shootings in which AR-15-style assault rifles were used include the following:
Feb. 14, 2018: Shooter at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida killed 17 people.
Oct. 1, 2017: Shooter at Las Vegas event killed 58 people.
Nov. 5, 2017: Shooter at Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting killed 26 people.
June 12, 2016: The Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, left 49 dead.
Dec. 2, 2015: The San Bernardino, California, shooting killed 14 people.
Dec. 14, 2012: The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut took 27 lives.
AR-15-style weapons are offshoots of the M-16 rifles used during the Viet Nam war. Like the M-16, the AR-15 is designed to kill people quickly and in large numbers. The National Rifle Association estimates there are some eight million AR-15s and its variations in circulation, and says they are so popular that the "AR" should stand for "America's Rifle."
The New York Times reported the Uvalde and Buffalo instances of gun violence are not unusual. “There have been 213 mass shootings in the United States in the first 21 weeks of 2022. An average of 321 Americans are shot every single day. And every day, there are roughly more than 50,000 gun sales recorded.”
Mass shootings were reduced for a decade after President Bill Clinton signed an assault-weapons ban in 1994. After the ban was not renewed in 2004, the number of mass shootings increased. The ban did not, however, prevent the Columbine High School massacre in which two students killed twelve students and one teacher in April 1999.
We are left wondering what can be done to reduce the number of mass shootings. Other countries do not have the gun violence that pervades our American culture. Students, shoppers, and church-goers in other countries do not live in fear being gunned down.
We need to demand our legislators pass a permanent assault weapons ban that will buy back AR-15-style weapons and bump stocks (which can be added to semi-automatics to make them behave more like automatic firearms) from civilians and that will halt their production, importation, and sales for all but military and law enforcement uses. In response to a mass shooting that killed 35 and wounded 28 people in 1996, Australia greatly reduced the number of murders when it instituted a guns buy-back program that removed more than 650,000 from use.
Polls show a majority of Americans have supported stricter gun laws for decades. A Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted this week showed overwhelming support among Americans for background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons, and other gun restrictions.
We also need a Supreme Court decision that restores the meaning of the first half of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The meaning of the first 13 words was lost after the 2008 Supreme Court’s decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller case. By a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court, ignoring the original intent of the amendment, interpreted the Second Amendment to grant individuals the right to possess and use firearms independent of servicing in a well governed militia.
If our legislators fail to produce the changes that are needed, vote for those who will be more responsive to all Americans, not just to those in their political party or to lobbyists.
— Judy Parr is a resident of Holland.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Why America must restore its assault-weapons ban
