How many children will have to lose their lives in America before someone somewhere takes the issue of gun control seriously?
Like many other people over the last week I’ve broken my heart over and over again as each and every news story hit my Facebook timeline. The deaths, the heroes, the grieving families, the rallies, Trump…each time something new was revealed my heart broke a little more.
Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz took the lives of 17 people – take a second to absorb that – Alyssa Alhadeff (14), Scott Beigel (35), Martin Duque Anguiano (14), Nicholas Dworet (17), Aaron Feis (37), Jaime Guttenberg (14), Chris Hixon (49), Luke Hoyer (15), Cara Loughran (14), Gina Montalto (14), Joaquin Oliver (17), Alaina Petty (14), Meadow Pollack (18), Helena Ramsay (17), Alex Schachter (14), Carmen Schentrup (16) and Peter Wang (15). They will be remembered.
Their President Donald Trump responded with “prayers”, he’s too busy protecting the Second Amendment right to bear arms to do much else, he’s too much in debt to the NRA for helping him get elected. So, instead of responding with any kind of sensible discussions or debate he chose to protect the right for a deranged 19-year-old to wipe out 17 lives with an AR-15-style rifle which Cruz apparently bought legally a year ago.
I remember the first time I was affected by a “school shooting”. It was in 1996 when gunman Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and one teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland before killing himself. I cried at the sight of the little faces being shown on the nightly news, I was surrounded by my six siblings, all younger, some of which were the same age as the victims. I was just 17, it tore my heart right out of my chest and even thinking about it again today has reduced me to tears. I was so affected by it at the time I even wrote a poem which began “Little children with innocence in their eyes, in walked evil in disguise”.
Let’s take a second to acknowledge those victims: Victoria Elizabeth Clydesdale (5), Emma Elizabeth Crozier (5), Melissa Helen Currie (5), Charlotte Louise Dunn (5), Kevin Allan Hasell (5), Ross William Irvine (5), David Charles Kerr (5), Mhairi Isabel MacBeath (5), teacher Gwen Mayor (45), Brett McKinnon (6), Abigail Joanne McLennan (5), Emily Morton (5), Sophie Jane Lockwood North (5), John Petrie (5), Joanna Caroline Ross (5), Hannah Louise Scott (5) and Megan Turner (5). They will also be remembered.
After Dunblane Conservative PM John Major introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which banned all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre single-shot weapons in England, Scotland and Wales (of course Northern Ireland wasn’t included), but following the 1997 General Election, Labour PM Tony Blair introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, banning the remaining .22 cartridge handguns as well. Now, the only guns that are legal in England, Scotland & Wales are muzzle-loading and historic handguns as well as certain sporting handguns. This is how a country should respond to a mass shooting.
I suppose some people will wonder why I’m so annoyed about this most recent shooting in the US. I don’t live in America, I don’t plan to live there and I don’t know anyone who was involved.
I’m a pacifist, the idea that someone would want a gun in the first place completely baffles me, I can’t understand why a person feels the need to own a gun. The only reason you need or want one, in my mind, is to shoot and kill something or someone.
I suppose growing up in Northern Ireland for me guns mean death, destruction and families in ruins. Even the word “gun” conjures up images of paramilitaries, punishment beatings, soldiers and innocent lives being taken.
Whilst the Trump administration don’t exactly seem to be doing much other than protecting their political donations the rest of the country is rising up.
And it’s children and gun owners who are making the biggest waves. The brave, courageous and downright amazing Florida shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez stood up to her President and she fought back her tears to say everything the rest of the world was thinking, she challenged the most powerful man in the country, some would argue the world, and she was right.
She said: “All these people should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it’s time for victims to be the change that we need to see.”
Gun owner Scott-Dani Pappalardo also made waves across social media going viral with his moving film in which he is depicted sitting outside his home with his AR-15 on his lap. In the video he explains that he’s never fired at an animal (or human for that matter) and actually has really enjoyed shooting targets over the three decades he’s owned the gun. He spoke eloquently and movingly about how he felt after hearing about the shooting and the heartbreak he felt for the victims and their families. He ended his video by taking a circular saw and cutting his $800 gun into pieces claiming it will “never take a life” and that this was his small part to having #oneless gun in America.
So why should we care? Because we’re human, that’s why!
And because people like Donald Trump have their finger on the World War 3 button.
No one knows better than the people of Northern Ireland the death, destruction and tragedy that legal and illegal guns can cause.
Violence, of any kind, has no place in a civilised society. And no one should ever want to hold a gun for their only purpose is to kill.
We’ve put up with violence in Northern Ireland for decades and where did it get us? With no winning side, no resolution and a pack of imbeciles pretending they know what it takes to run a country.