Emily Kowalik ’18
Opinions Editor
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack, in Florida, left 17 students and staff members dead and is the deadliest school shooting since 2012. Student survivors from the attack, the most recent school shooting, have announced a national “March for Our Lives” on Washington to demand political action on gun control. Theirs is just one of many student-led groups calling for protests and working to amass support on social media in the wake of the recent attack.
Trump has agreed to meet with the Florida students and staff for a “listening session.” But the President continues to focus on shooter Nikolas Cruz’s mental health issues and dodge gun-control questions.
This has been the president’s pattern, to blame the mental health of the shooter as the problem, not his access to guns. Donald Trump has pledged to fiercely defend the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects people’s right to keep and bear arms. A staunch supporter of the National Rifle Association, last year Trump told the NRA he would “never, ever infringe” on that right.
The Florida students vow to target politicians who accept support from the NRA. But Americans are immensely fond of their weapons: there are more guns in the U.S. than people, even though only a third of American households own guns. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA spent $11.4 million supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign and $19.7 million opposing Hillary Clinton. This is why even the most modest steps are stalled out on Capitol Hill, while gun confiscation is dead on arrival.
But the Florida students also plan to rally for gun control at the state capital and meet with a Florida lawmaker who is seeking to enact a state ban on assault-style weapons, like the AR-15 used in the school shooting. And this is where they – and we – should concentrate the effort for gun control.
Local political action should be the key focus. Trump isn’t doing anything about gun violence But individual states are stepping up
While the nation seems gridlocked, unable to reach any solution to gun violence, states have been effectively working on it. In the wake of the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, when 20 children and six educators were killed, Connecticut drafted some of the toughest gun legislation in the nation. According to the Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner’s office, deaths resulting from firearms fell to 164 in 2016, from 226 in 2012.
In general, states with the strictest gun-control measures, like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have the lowest rate of gun deaths. Those with lax laws, such as Alabama, Alaska and Louisiana, have the highest, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, named for former Democratic Representative from Arizona Gabrielle Giffords, a who suffered a serious brain injury in a 2011 mass shooting .
2017 was not a great year for federal gun reform laws – none passed – but it was a good year for state-level action. More than 30 laws preventing gun violence passed in state legislatures.
“The states are really moving the needle in a way that Congress at the federal level is absolutely not,” Robin Lloyd, Giffords Law Center director.
You want gun control measures passed? Then get busy and contact the people working on gun control measures in your state!
