Sandy Hook: 12 years on, and nothing has changed!
Yesterday marked the 12th anniversary of the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, that ended the lives of 26 people, including 20 children under the age of 7, and despite the initial outrage, nothing has changed in the past dozen years. There have literally been dozens more mass school shootings since Sandy Hook, and all we get from our Congresspeople are thoughts and prayers. Sadly, we forget all too soon after one of these mass shootings until the next one, and we feel the rage once more; it has just become normal; kids being gunned down in school should never be normal.
When Sandy Hook happened, I had been in the US for just 4 years, and it was the first mass school shooting I remember, maybe because it was an elementary school, and I had two kids of elementary school age. I thought, watching the coverage, that surely our Congresspeople would be forced into taking action and creating meaningful gun regulation, but no, thoughts and prayers are all that were offered.
And why would these politicians not want to do anything to protect our kids? Well, the answer is simple, the gun lobby has deep pockets to buy as many politicians as they need to continue to sell assault rifles, which are used in the vast majority of mass shootings, in schools or otherwise. Citing the 2nd amendment, ”The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Leaving out the “Well-regulated militia, which is necessary for the security of a free state.” Gun advocates will always cite the Supreme Court, which basically separates the two statements with the OR operator. In contrast, Anti-gun people, myself included, believe that the prefatory and operative clauses are written as one declaration. In modern terms, I think this refers to the US Military, or state military, commonly known as the National Guard. So, any Tom, Dick, or Harry does not have an absolute right to possess a firearm.
Whether you are pro-gun or anti-gun, I’m pretty sure that the intention of the founders was not to have our children gunned down in a place of education using close to military-grade weapons. Even if you believe an individual has the right to bear arms, that does not mean that this right is unlimited and cannot be regulated, for example, by banning individuals from owning assault weapons, which is what the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation is pushing for. In fact, such a ban was passed in 1994 under the Bill Clinton administration but was allowed to expire in 2004 under the George W Bush administration.
Because of the way that the US allows our congresspeople to be legally bribed, big money interests, including the gun manufacturers, have captured Congress; even if every American signed the Sandy Hook Promise petition, nothing would change. The only way to force change is to make politicians on the state and federal levels fear being voted out and actually represent their constituents, but the reality is that the people are not willing to hold their elected officials accountable, so what incentive do politicians have to follow the will of the people, not just on this issue, but a multitude of issues faced by everyday Americans.
The solution is not to have more guns; it’s a myth that having a good guy with a gun will prevent school shootings; the reality is that only 1.2% of all active shooter situations were ended by an armed bystander. In Uvalde, there were literally dozens of “good guys with a gun” outside the school while 21 teachers and students were murdered. Also, 75% of teachers do not wish to be armed and do not believe that firearms have a place in schools. Mental health is a prominent issue, and given that anyone could have undiagnosed mental health issues, including teachers and school resource officers, heaven forbid we hire veterans, especially those who saw combat and have returned to the United States with PTSD.
The only thing that hasn’t been blamed is the sheer number of guns in the US, estimated to be over 500 million in a country of 345 million people. Mental health is commonly used as a scapegoat by politicians to deflect from the real problem of the US swimming in firearms, that’s 1.5 guns per person. And it is just to deflect, look over there, nothing to see here, as little is done to address the mental health epidemic.
Yesterday on the 12th anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, outgoing President Joe Biden called on Congress to act on gun reform legislation. Talk is cheap; in his 4 years as president, he has never done anything other than offer words; he is bought by the same monied interests as Congress. As President, he has the ultimate bully pulpit but has done little except offer words when a shooting happens and has quickly moved on after the news cycle ends and people return to their lives, no longer paying attention.
If law makers are accepting money for preventing a ban on guns which then leads to people legally arming themselves and commit murder then I think the law makers should do time behind bars.
In 1996 there was the Dunblane massacre. A school shooting in which 15 children and 1 teacher were murdered. In this case the shooter used several hand guns. Very quickly the UK government produced the Firearms (Amendment) Act in 1997 banning all hand guns with the exception of antique / muzzle loaded guns. There hasn’t been a school shooting since.
I have never really understood the Americans and their affinity for guns. I hear and read their words but it makes no sense to me. They sound crazy.