I Have Had It

I’ve had it. With the news of the tragedy in Orlando, my mind is absolutely spinning in an attempt to understand how this could happen again. My heart breaks for the fifty-three people who were murdered at the hands of a permit-carrying gun owner last night. My blood boils thinking about our elected officials who continue to allow this kind of outrageous and unnecessary bloodshed.

This morning we all wake to the same things: Polarized discussions about gun control, and our second amendment rights. The same arguments are thrown around again and again. Statistic wars are started, comparing gun violence to car accidents. Blame is placed on terrorism, religion, ethnicity, or mental health status. The fifty-three innocent people who lost their lives are lumped together under the title of mass shooting victims. A moment of silence will be held, a candle light vigil organized and attended. A few politicians will shake their fists and promise a change.

But nothing will change, and as harsh as it sounds, those fifty-three people will soon be forgotten by the heaping majority of their fellow Americans.

And then it will happen again.

Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

The victims are always different, the locations varied. Sometimes there is a reason (though this in no way justifies the action), sometimes there isn’t. But there is always one thing in common. Guns.

Not religion. Not ethnicity. Not intolerance. Not hate. Not terrorism. Guns are the common denominator.

America has a problem with guns.

We have shown time and time again that we are incapable of implementing a system for responsible usage, and yet, for reasons that are absolutely beyond me, we refuse to regulate them in any semblance of a reasonable manner.

The constitution got a lot of things right when it was first drafted, but much has changed in the nearly two-hundred and twenty-nine years since it was signed, and with the deadliest mass shooting in American history now in the books, isn’t it time we put our collective foot down and loudly declare enough is enough?

How many more people have to die before we demand a change? How many more lives can we comfortably justify the loss of in the name of maintaining our outdated and utterly abused right to bear arms? The weapons we are so vehemently defending our made-up right to possess are coming at the cost of human lives. Innocent men, women, and children are dying because we want to own something we don’t need.

Owning a gun shouldn’t be a right, it should be a privilege. And until we prove we are capable of owning them responsibly, and regulating them effectively, we shouldn’t have them.  

We can’t effectively or realistically regulate every person, nor can we get rid of murder all together. But, like just about every other first-world country out there, we can regulate guns, and thereby reduce the incidence of mass murder. It’s time. Enough is enough.

(This post originally ran on Hold Me, Don’t Hold Me)