Consensus on Gun Policy?

On October 1st, Stephen Paddock, a seemingly normal and nonsocial man, killed 58 people at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas from his suite at a nearby hotel room. As most people are already familiar with the shooting by now, a good amount of Americans not know what to take away from this tragedy, or are misconstruing the shooting altogether. As I am someone who wholeheartedly supports gun rights and advocates expanding ownership of guns, this man used a gun in a terribly irrational way, and his acts in no way should be condoned. However, as I always stress when talking about shootings, the acts of the few do not reflect the acts of the many, and good citizens should not be punished for the acts of the few. Now, let's examine the details behind the shooting.

The Shooter

I will keep this section brief and just touch over the highlights of Paddock. 64 year old Stephen Paddock is the man behind the weapon. He was born and raised in Southern California as the son of a former bank robber. He became rich by investing in fixing real estate and renting out apartments in poor areas around California. Eventually he would have 2 short lived marriages, and much later would start gambling heavily, as gambling made him feel respected. His gambling life would lead to him developing a sense of arrogance and superiority over everyone else. Even though he acted in such ways, he was a very smart and high functioning individual by teaching himself how to repair and install AC units, fix plumbing issues, fix other basic household issues (helping him turn a fortune in real estate), obtain a pilot's license and an instrument rating, and was he never late on any payments.

As time went on however, he seemed to start to deteriorate. He hardly ever went to the complexes he owned, he communicated less with his family, people who tried to engage in conversation with him were ignored, and he started buying weapons. Buying weapons happened to be a hobby of his since 1982, collecting an arsenal of over 40 guns, but he recently started impulse buying them. His motives are still unknown to authorities, with Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill stating “we still do not have a clear motive or reason why.” While no tangible motives are known, Paddock’s brother Eric Paddock gave one plausible insight on his brother, stating: “Something horrible happened to my brother and whatever happened to him in his head, it made him go over the edge like this”.

The Shooting

Singer Jason Aldean hosted a concert of his in Las Vegas, with attendance reaching about 22 thousand people. The venue took place outside at a fenced in 15-acre concrete lot. Paddock was residing in the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, when he smashes 2 windows began his attack from the 32nd floor of the resort at approximately 10:05 PM. Due to the event being fenced in, it made it difficult for people to escape the lot. 1 hour and 22 minutes of mass hysteria later, officials reported that the suspect was down due to a self inflicted gunshot. For a more detailed depiction of the event, I suggest going to read USA Today’s article on the shooting. This shooting was the largest in US history, killing 58 people and injuring 489. Oddly enough, when 2 officers and a hotel security guard arrived on the 32nd floor and the hotel security guard, Jesus Campos, was shot in the leg through Paddocks suite door, Paddock never opened fire on the crowd again. Little is known as to why he acted the way he did, or why he had 50 pounds of explosives stashed in his car, but we do know one thing for certain: this shooting is revamping the gun control debate all across the country once more, leaving us with many questions as to what should be done in response to this massacre.

The Future for Guns

There is a high price we pay for freedom in certain times, and in these certain times many people question whether this freedom should exist at all. It is not uncommon for people to use shootings for political leverage and to act off of emotion, but this is a dangerous path to follow. From time to time we must go back and review the principles we hold in our society and determine the positives and negatives of them, and see which one holds more weight. Shootings like these bring this option for review forward once again, and for both sides to share their case. As we have seen, the NRA and many Republicans in Congress have come out and said they will support more regulation on “bump stocks”. Paddock used a bump stock in this shooting to increase his rate of fire. We must all support doing something to prevent more gun violence, even when there isn't a mass shooting that just occurred.

The freedom to keep and bear is coming into question once more, and it is important that we make sure that an honest and open discussion on the topic of the 2nd amendment must be had if we are to alter or abolish it. It is unlikely that anything major will happen, considering 52% of Americans believe in protecting the 2nd amendment, and this trend is an increasing one. American gun violence has also been at a decline for many years now, while American gun sales have increased. Hopefully we will soon see more Americans believing in the 2nd amendment, and for all Americans to come to some consensus. There are 3 things in relation to the gun debate that should and can be universally agreed upon. 1) Action must be taken to reduce gun violence and deter gun crime, whether it be by arming more law abiding citizens or by enacting more gun control measures, 2) The 2nd amendment at its core value must be preserved to keep our government in check, and to assure our freedom remains sacred and valued in a country built on the spirit of freedom and the use of weapons, 3) The gun control debate should be kept constant in order to keep our beliefs and opinions on gun control revised.

These 3 basic concepts can all be easily agreed upon by Americans with enough encouragement and debate. Anyone who wants the 2nd amendment completely abolished has an easily refutable and baseless thought on the matter. This does not mean these people should be ignored or not allowed to spread their views, it rather means that they can be easily debunked and rendered irrelevant. It also can be agreed that some form of action must be taken, and that we cannot sit around and do nothing. Gun violence is a problem, this cannot be denied, but this does not mean you must be against gun rights to believe said statement. My solution to what action must be taken is simple: increase gun ownership for law abiding citizens, help broken and distraught families, as domestic and family issue cause a large amount of mass shootings, 54% from 2009-2016 to be precise, increase the punishment for most gun crimes to eliminate cases of repeat offenders, and increase funding for monitoring individuals deemed unfit to own or possess firearms (particularly criminals in this case).

It is not certain whether most people will come around to these ideas, but this gives us more of a reason to keep informing people. The problem with the gun control debate is not a lack of information, it is an overabundance of information to where other can easily manipulate and distort information on the gun control debate, which is why we must fight for more open and honest debate here, or we may see the end of our freedom to possess arms. Whether you are right or left leaning, these 3 concepts I propose can be agreed upon by all sides, but must work in unison with each other for maximum efficiency, hopefully erasing this great divide we have on gun policy opinion. The Las Vegas shooting was the exception out of the bunch, not the norm. The acts of this likely troubled man should have us all come together unified, because as the divide grows wider between Americans, so does any chance of effectively and permanently fixing American gun violence.