Las Vegas Needs to be Politicized

Tonight�s subject is something that I do not want to talk about. When I woke up on Monday morning and checked Facebook and learned about what happened in Las Vegas, I was numb to the fact that another mass shooting had occurred in our country. It did not even phase me. It has become such a common occurrence in our nation that it has become normal for American citizens to be gunned down by insane, evil killers.

            The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again without changing anything and expecting a different outcome. We have not changed a single thing about our national gun laws since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2010. Since then, there have been 998 mass shootings in America. We could not even pass legislation that required universal background checks.

            Our government tries so hard to prevent terrorist attacks by issuing travel bans, forming terrorist watch lists, bombing cities, and engaging in decade long wars in far-away places. We perceive places like Iraq and Syria to be hellish and extremely dangerous. For 15 minutes on Sunday night, downtown Las Vegas turned into the hell that we worked so hard to combat. For 15 minutes, bullets rained from the sky on American citizens inAmerica. It�s inconceivable to me that in a country that is so advanced and so powerful, that one of our most prominent cities became a scene similar to something that we see on the news in places like Afghanistan. We are the leader of the free world, yet we cannot go to a concert or a sporting event or the club or the movie theater, or even school without the thought in the back of our heads that we might be gunned down.

            The general response following these tragedies is one of love and support. But any effort to change our laws to prevent another attack are quickly criticized and seen as inappropriate. I did not want to talk about this issue tonight, but based on the misconceptions and the controversy surrounding gun reform in America, I wanted to point out some falsehoods in the narrative that gun control is not practical.

            I�ll be blunt. We need to ban assault weapons in this country.

            Yeah, I said it.

            If you don�t agree with me and you are about to click out of this article because you think I am a crazy liberal who hates guns, I would encourage you to stay.

            I do not hate guns. In fact, I think it is important that everybody knows how to operate a gun in case of an emergency. However, nobody needs an assault weapon (except the military and police). Assault weapons are designed to kill lots of people in a short amount of time. You do not need them to defend yourself and you do not need them to hunt. The killer behind the Las Vegas attack had twenty-three guns in his hotel room. He bought them easily and legally.

            There are generally two rebuttals to the argument I just presented. These rebuttals are: A killer will find a way to kill regardless of whether he has a gun or not and a criminal probably will not care if there is a law that bans assault weapons because, after all, he is a criminal.

            In regards to the first rebuttal to my argument, you are not wrong. However, you cannot kill fifty-eight people from the 32^nd floor of a hotel with a knife or any other weapon. Sure, you might be able to stab a few people at ground level, but that kind of attack would be quickly defeated. You can drive a truck through a crowd, but that attack would end quickly because you will inevitably crash and people will try to get out of the way. The killer in Las Vegas was not defeated until twenty minutes after the first shot was fired. He was also able to kill at a rapid rate with accessories that made his guns fully automatic. That is simply not possible with any other weapon.

            In regards to the second rebuttal to my argument, you are not wrong either. However, making access to assault weapons more difficult could deter a criminal from carrying out an attack. By banning assault weapons, the ability for a man to build an arsenal of twenty-three guns in his hotel room is weakened significantly and is nearly impossible. Most of the mass shooters of this century have been mentally-ill and had easy access to assault weapons which is what enabled their killing spree. The guns that Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook massacre were sitting in the house that he lived in and were easily accessible to him. If those guns were not so available, 26 children and teachers would be alive today.

            Any effort by the Democrats to push legislation following these tragedies is seen as exploiting the event to push a political agenda. In places like Fox News, hosts like Sean Hannity (my favorite pal) reacted with rage to �the Dems, comedians, and media for racing to politicize the issue.�

            Hours after the San Bernardino attack in 2015, Hannity ripped into the FBI for not immediately labeling the incident as a terrorist attack and not immediately releasing the names of the terrorists. He said, �The FBI is PC� (politically correct) and, �Why are they being so cautious?�

            Sean Hannity is not Sean Hannity if he isn�t being hypocritical. You�ve got to love the guy.

            Senators like Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz tweeted out that they were praying for the victims� families and Las Vegas following this massacre. They tweet these things and say their usual lines but they do not look at the issue and try to solve it. Following the San Bernardino attack, the front page of The New York Daily News read, �GOD IS NOT FIXING THIS.� It is one of the most memorable and powerful headlines ever printed and it rings true today. These lawmakers have the ability to change laws and try to prevent more mass shootings. Instead they tweet out their condolences and then go collect a paycheck from the NRA.

That�s all for this week.