Sandy Hook. Charleston. Lafayette. Oregon. San Bernardino.
Places that were once regarded ordinarily now come with an ominous connotation.
According to the Washington Post, by the 274th day of 2015, we had 294 mass shootings.
As of 2016, President Obama is preparing to take initiative against gun violence by issuing an executive policy.
The president’s efforts to crack down on gun regulation were earlier dismissed by Congress. In numerous addresses, Obama has been visibly frustrated by this failure to push gun safety legislation.
On Jan. 5, during an event at the White House held to announce new gun control measures, Obama wiped away tears while speaking about the Newtown incident and other mass killings.
“Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying? I reject that thinking,” Obama said in his speech.
The gun control measures will require more gun sellers to get licenses and more gun buyers to undergo background checks.
Don*, co-owner of Lucky13 Cast Bullets LLC in Kernersville, believes that the executive order is not going to be successful, partly due to the fact that the President’s power is not sufficient enough to single-handedly implement policies.
“The President can’t really make a law. He needs Congress’ support to do that. He can say ‘this is what I want,’ but in order for that to become effective, it has to be voted on by Senate and Congress – or else it’s just a wish-list.”
“It stems into the lack of social responsibility. A gun is just a tool — like a hammer, a wrench or a drill. Any tool used by someone who doesn’t know how to use it can be dangerous,” Don said.
Proponents for gun safety have urged the administration to tighten the rule governing which gun sellers must conduct background checks.
“The right to bear arms doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to get guns. And I don’t think background checks would make it difficult for your average Americans to get a gun since they would pass one. It would just make things safer,” junior and member of Young Democrats Anna Diemel said.
In fact, many gun vendors even agree, arguing that the current policies are too vague, and allow a small number of fraudulent dealers to skirt the law and sell guns in bulk to unscreened buyers.
On the other hand, gun rights advocates disagree, promising to challenge any action taken by Obama to compromise the rules.
“We don’t have a king in America, but he sure is acting like it,” Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights said.
The prospects of America losing its democratic values and individuals losing their personal freedom are often associated with the argument surrounding the executive order and with gun restriction in general.
“The second amendment wasn’t created to hunt or for sport. We had just fought a war against a tyrannical government. And so people had the right to protect themselves from that. It’s what they were escaping from in the first place – monarchy, tyranny, whatever you want to call it,” Don said. “We have to get back to the human nature of doing what’s right and being good to one another, and then maybe gun violence will go away. But that’s never going to happen.”
*The co-owner of Lucky 13 Cast Bullets, LLC, is only referred to by his first name at his request.