The right to own firearms, also known as the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is one of the most exploited and abused rights in the history of mankind.
While most registered gun owners use their legally purchased weapons for non-lethal purposes, many irresponsible gun owners have ruined a once-privileged right.
In the wake of recent tragedies in Aurora, Colo., Oak Creek, Wis., and Newtown, Conn, it is time to enact useful gun control legislation to further reduce unnecessary gun violence.
Some critics of gun control legislation, like the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, believe that limiting clip sizes wouldn’t have changed the scenario at Newtown.
“The criminals, the drug dealers, the people that are going to do horror … they aren’t going to cooperate,” LaPierre said, in reference to Connecticut legislation that limited ammunition clips to 10 rounds instead of 30. “There’s no evidence that anything would have changed.”
Although LaPierre, in his interview with Fox News, articulated his case for gun rights well, his position couldn’t have been more insensitive.
It’s important to realize that if Adam Lanza, the shooter at Newtown, had possessed only 10-round clips instead of 30-round clips, more children would have likely survived.
For the moment, let’s arbitrarily say that it took Lanza two seconds to reload each of his 30-round clips.
Firing 120 bullets would have required Lanza to reload four times, or eight seconds, if one counts loading his initial clip of his 30 rounds.
Firing 120 bullets on 10-round clips, however, would have required Lanza to reload 12 times, or 24 seconds, if one includes his initial 10-round load.
Though not an eternity, 16 seconds would have undoubtedly helped at least one child run to safety.
One cannot fault LaPierre for not believing in pure logic, as Americans of his stubborn mindset are the ones refusing to enact proper gun control legislation.
In addition to limiting clip sizes, the rest of the U.S. should follow Connecticut in requiring background checks for all gun purchases.
At the end of the day, it is the shooter, not the gun, who decides to kill. Although the gun can’t fire itself, its importance cannot be underestimated.
Like Canadian media theorist Marshal McLuhan once said, “The medium is the message.”
In this case, the gun is the medium by which psychopaths and deranged people have exacted forms of retribution that can never be justified.
Restricting the medium, guns, may one day reduce the message or one’s instinct to kill.
Let’s remember that absolute freedom is not true freedom.
Even the First Amendment, Americans’ right to free speech, has limitations. Libel, slander and the proverbial “fire in a movie theater” are not protected.
Let’s keep the right to bear arms intact and impose restrictions that will lead to a better tomorrow.
Shane Newell is a sophomore journalism major and an assistant city editor for the Daily 49er.