"Now is not the time to talk about gun control." That’s what Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s press secretary, said earlier this week.
So here's a question: When is it time? We could not talk about it after a a mass shooting in a movie theater in Colorado. We could not talk about it after children were massacred in their school in Connecticut. We could not talk about it after people were killed at a night club in Florida.
This is an issue that is not—and should not—be political. It’s safe to say we can all agree, right, left, and center, that mass shootings = really bad thing.
Now, let’s figure out out a way to stop them. This should not be this hard, folks. For fuck’s sake, we put Americans on the moon in a time when computers took up whole buildings. And somehow, we can't figure this out?
My hopes for anything being done are not high. If the senseless killing of schoolchildren did nothing, it’s doubtful the killing and wounding of the innocent folks attending a country music show will. Our lawmakers are beholden to the NRA, a gun lobbying organization that does not give a rats ass about its members, or the American people as a whole. They only thing the NRA cares about is increasing firearms sales.
There are, however, some very simple things we can do to prevent these types of events from happening, and none of them include taking anyone’s guns away.
The Vegas shooter was able to purchase 33 firearms in one year. Shouldn't something like that raise a red flag to law enforcement? Currently, it doesn’t. You withdraw more than $10,000 from your bank account, and the government knows. Buy 33 firearms in a year, and no one raises an eyebrow.
Another unlikely example: allergies. I have to take Sudafed in the summer months to clear my sinuses. But I can only purchase 20 pills at a time, and the pharmacist has to hand it to me, and handle the transaction. I also have to show my driver’s license and sign for it, all in order to ensure I am not going out and buying a ton of it to make meth. But I can walk into any gun store in America and buy as much ammunition as I can get my hands on—and no one would be the wiser about it.
How hard can it be to track the number of firearms and ammo purchases a person makes? My Sudafed transactions can be tracked, so it cannot be that difficult to do it with weapons and ammo. If either of those things had been tracked, then it is possible the tragedy in Las Vegas could have been prevented.
Those are just two simple changes our legislators could effect to make us safer, and they would not infringe on anyone’s right to carry a firearm. Other laws that should be enacted? I would start with a hypothetical “responsible gun owners act”: If you own a firearm, and that firearm is used in an “accidental discharge,” then the owner of the firearm would be held accountable and charged with a crime, whether or not they were actually holding the gun. If a child uses that firearm and someone is killed, the owner should be charged with manslaughter. If you have a firearm stolen and it was not secured in a safe or did not have a trigger lock, and if that firearm was used in the commission of a crime, the firearm owner should face criminal charges. If you are a responsible gun owner, this law would not infringe upon your rights.
These simple changes that do not infringe on anyone’s rights would not immediately make changes to our gun culture. But over time, they would have an impact. We have to stop sitting on our hands every time a mass shooting happens, and the NRA cannot be allowed to control this conversation anymore. If our citizens were being killed in other countries in mass shootings, you can guarantee our leaders would be screaming about it.
Now is the time to talk about this. Now is the time to take the conversation out of the hands of the NRA. It’s time to end the senseless violence against innocent people that happens every day in this country.