With all this support to enact stricter laws and regulations on guns, and even gun owners themselves admitting change must happen, why is nothing happening? The National Rifle Association (NRA for short) is a U.S. non-profit organization that is self described as tireless defenders of your second amendment rights. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” And although this proves a good argument for gun-rights advocates, this is not an unlimited right to own guns (most rights are not unlimited either), and with what I am imposing, one can still possess such weapons, as long as one does not have a violent history, or background that would suggest the misuse of firearms, including mental illness, and/or irrational tendencies, then feel free to legally purchase and use guns for personal defense or hunting as a pastime.
In the past year, hospital doctors took to twitter, to talk about the frightening amount of blood they see everyday from the violence of guns, Dr. Haughey, an emergency physician and the director of St. Barnabas Hospital’s emergency medicine residency program says. “I never get used to it. It’s tiresome.” The NRA responded not too long after, and tweeted, “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.”
Dr. Haughey replied with another tweet, saying “I see no one from the @nra next to me in the trauma bay as I have cared for victims of gun violence for the past 25 years,” she wrote. “THAT must be MY lane. COME INTO MY LANE. Tell one mother her child is dead with me, then we can talk.” Doctors everywhere saw this interaction and flooded in with responses similar to Haughey’s.
The NRA presents the argument that gun laws infringe upon the right of self-defense and deny the people a sense of safety. This also would be deemed incorrect, because carrying around high-capacity magazines, assault type rifles, is not convenient, nor would make anyone else feel safe around you, in addition, if all you want to do with guns if self defense, then feel free to go through all the background checks and mental health tests, I am suggesting, to get a gun.
Protecting yourself will not be a problem, simply go through all the procedure to get smaller scale guns. But high capacity weapons should not be available to anyone other than ones with licenses granted through extensive background checks and psyche evaluations. And with all of this, should come with regulations that enforce people to keep their weapons non-accessible to minors in their households.
With better background checks and health checks, we could downsize the amount of harm guns cause in US society greatly. And with tons of support from people everywhere we can make this vision become a reality.