Disclaimer: The following post may be sensitive, due to current events. But, there is never a right time for a conversation like this. The time is now, and I only bring it up because I want a better, more peaceful society where we can all choose how to live our own lives. Finding justice for the victims of today means more than just finding a perpetrator. It also means ensuring events like today's will have less likelihood of happening tomorrow.
I still cannot wrap my head around the senseless tragedy that took place in Connecticut. My thoughts continue to be with the victims, but also with the millions of lives that will be affected as a ripple effect takes place. It is devastating - these were innocent lives, each with a different story, family and future, that were cruelly taken away and cut short, because of one, irrational man who tried using violence as a solution.
But while we mourn for those lost, we also have to emphasize the importance to have a conversation about how to prevent these tragedies in the future. And many may want to wait, but there is simply never a right time. Just several days ago, a shooting occurred in Oregon, not to mention the other devastating events that have taken place in the last year. We cannot just wait until similar events transpire all over again before calling for change again. Part of giving justice to those that have passed is by ensuring that nothing like these events happen again in the future.
However, the conversation cannot just be about guns. It has to be about us, humans. Because, after all, humans are the ones hurting each other. Not the guns. Every time there is a shooting, society talks about banning guns, or controlling weapons, as if that would completely make violence disappear overnight. Why can't we blame ourselves? Why can't we blame our society? Maybe we are at fault. Maybe it is how we educate our children that is the problem. Not the existence of guns.
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| Google displayed a white candle on its homepage in memory of the victims. |
The gun has no capability of hurting anyone. Not even if someone is standing directly in front of it. It is an individual, who chooses independently, to pull the trigger, that ultimately creates disaster.
And herein is where our problem lies. When did violence become so glorified? When did guns become such a huge part of our popular culture? When did weapons become a "tool" that is portrayed as a solution to a problem? And most of all, when did weapons become the cause of violence, not humans? These are the questions we should be asking.
The real, long-term way to fix our broken society is by education, not by some flimsy attempt to filter out the majority of violent weapons in our society. We need to educate society that violence isn't good - it is bad. It is horrible. We need to educate society that violence, guns and weapons do NOT solve problems; they only create a bigger mess. Because when a gunman shoots even just one person, it isn't only that one person that is hurt. That victim may have a spouse, and some kids, who will be devastated of the news. Those people in turn affect the rest of society, causing thousands of lives to be affected in the end. We can ban knives, guns, needles, rocks, cars, hammers and anything and everything else that we believe have the possibility of hurting another person in life. But that will never work. Because all of the violence is caused by humans using those things.
Like everything else in our lives, guns have both a useful function and a negative side. When a crash involving a drunk driver or a driver who was texting and driving occurs, we do not think to ban cars, alcohol and cellular devices. We may have laws against drunk driving and texting while driving, but that's similar to laws that prohibit weapons in various public venues. In all three situations, it is the people that are at fault, not the tools.
Furthermore, did the driver or gunman follow the laws? Nope. The driver who drank a little too much before getting into the car or who decided to send a text message while he was driving, deliberately broke the law. The gunman who decided to carry weapons into a school also broke the law purposefully. They were determined. And motivated. And laws won't stop them, only make the victims more defenseless.
In fact, education has been utilized to combat both drunk driving and texting while driving, as seen by AT&T's campaign amongst others by various organizations.
One final example: if a person drowns someone, do we try to ban water? That would not be possible. Water is a necessary component to live. So, like guns, while it has very beneficial effects, it also has very harmful potentials. We must work around them.
While we move forward and try to decide how to handle this growing problem, we cannot just think removing the tools off the regular market will solve all problems. They will still persist. Violence is created by humans. We can have the most deadly weapons, but they wouldn't be deadly if nothing were able to operate them. These weapons simply aren't robots - they do not have a mind of their own.
Education against violence and creating a society emphasizing love and tolerance is our best chance. Let's educate our youth that there are better ways to fix things, that there are alternatives, and violence is never the answer, no matter how tough life gets. It is a difficult time to talk about these issues, but it is also the best and most appropriate time to start a conversation about it. We cannot make a decision in a day. We need to decide as a society what we want, and sometimes, it begins with bringing up a hard issue.
We keep the victims of today in our hearts. And in doing that, we hope for justice and for safety, security and freedom to continue to be able to persist, only possible if we try to stop blaming inanimate objects for one second, think about the real cause, ourselves, and find a viable solution.
