33 dead, 15 wounded
As if anyone needed another example of the risks that come with the lack of gun control here in the States, today's shooting at Virginia Tech provided one. The list of these avoidable tragedies is growing longer, and perhaps the most amazing thing about each one is the speed with which the dialogue about guns following the incident goes away. How easy is it to get a gun here in the States? Although I don't have any personal experience with obtaining one, I can think of two examples of handgun tragedies, which touched my life - albeit at a distance.The first happened in 1989. Actually, the incident happened in 1988... it just didn't really hit close to home until 1989. On May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann opened fire in a school in Winnetka, Illinois. After killing an 8 year-old boy and shooting others in the school, Laurie Dann fled to a nearby house. A 20 year-old man was shot in the chest as he tried to get the gun from her, and then Laurie Dann turned the gun on herself. The 20 year-old man was Phil Andrew, and a year and a half later I was swimming with him at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One of Phil's lungs had lost most of its capacity, but even with one good lung, Phil was the swim team captain his senior year.
The second incident happened in December of 1993. I graduated from University earlier in the year, and was living in Chicago with a childhood friend, Paul. A high school friend of mine, Dave, was home from college, hanging out at our place watching TV. We were flipping channels, trying to find something to watch, when a news story caught Dave's eye. He told me to switch back. "Tom Melka was arrested today, after going to his ex-girlfriend's house and opening fire on her and her family." Tom Melka ('Thomas' as we knew him) was on our high school swim team, and just 4 years earlier, graduated with me from Kenwood Academy. At the time, that was one of the strangest moments of my life. I swam with this guy, shared the locker room with this guy, I REMEMBERED this guy. The people who commit these acts are often described as 'loners' or having 'kept to themselves'. All of this was true about Thomas. The reason that evening was one of the strangest moments of my life 'at the time', is because a few years later I met Thomas Melka's defense attorney - he was someone's date at the wedding of my oldest friend, Elmer.
So why is it so easy to get a gun in the States? Gun lovers always cite the second amendment, which gives them the 'right to bear arms'. There's no doubt the second amendment gives this right. But let's look at the entire sentence:
'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.'
I'm guessing it's been at least a couple hundred years since Americans needed to 'keep and bear arms' to maintain 'the security of a free State', and it seems to me the people with guns who commit crimes similar to the one today at Virginia Tech aren't behaving much like a 'well regulated militia'.
Labels: social commentary
posted by Aron @ 9:30 PM
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