On Sept. 4, 17-year-old Luis Alonzo pulled a knife during a fight with his classmates, killing one and injuring three. The fight, which occurred at Spring High School near Houston, Texas, did not receive nearly as much press as the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and for obvious reasons. Luckily, Alonzo didn’t have a gun with him—if he did, the three whom he injured might also be dead. The stabbing, along with multiple new North Carolina gun laws, has again raised the question, “Why do we have guns?”
The obvious answer is “Because of the Second Amendment.” But we should question our interpretation of the Second Amendment. When James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights, guns could only fire one shot before they required reloading. But guns today allow the shooter to fire multiple rounds before reloading. “In writing the Second Amendment, the Framers didn’t envision the kind of gun toting that is permitted across this country today,” said Melynda Price, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, in a piece for the Room for Debate section of The New York Times.
The ever-popular pro-gun argument is “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Yes, people with the intention to kill will do so whether there is a gun available to them or not. But guns sure do make for efficient killing machines. Just think if Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook gunman, wielded a knife instead of a gun.
Coincidentally, a violent spree similar to the one at Sandy Hook occurred on the same day at a school in Chengping, a village located in the Henan Province of central China. But Min Yingjun used a knife, not a gun. He attacked 22 children and one adult, none of whom died or even suffered life-threatening injuries. This goes to show that although knives and baseball bats and almost anything can be employed as weapons, guns can turn an injury into a death much more quickly.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn. and the mass movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., liberal states have tightened gun laws. But this is not the case in our Republican-controlled state.
Gov. Pat McCrory signed House Bill 937 into law in July. The law will take effect on Oct. 1, allowing permit holders to keep firearms in cars parked on college or public school campuses. What’s worse is that the law also allows permit holders to carry concealed firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, so long as the owner doesn’t expressly forbid it. Guns and alcohol sounds like a bad combination to me, but I’m comforted by the fact that those with guns in bars are “not supposed to consume alcohol,” according to WRAL. Equally (dis)comforting is the fact that HB937 also allows guns at public recreational areas such as playgrounds and greenways.
The North Carolina Legislature also passed Senate Bill 443 this summer. Better known as the “save the gun” law, SB443 “requires that law-enforcement agencies donate, keep or sell confiscated guns to licensed gun dealers, provided the weapons aren’t damaged or missing serial numbers,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The General Assembly is attempting to make North Carolina safer by making weapons more readily available and simply hoping those who carry them will only use them for good. Clearly, something is wrong in our state when the legislature’s response to a mass shooting is to loosen gun restrictions.