A Quick Rant About The Gun Policy in the USA

I’m working in the USA this week and I’m so excited to see my friends and family.

However, this excitement quickly switched to shock and horror when I opened my browser to look at the news.

I do my best to attempt to ignore the gun debate on social media. No matter what I say, what logically crafted arguments I create, the second amendment will always be the second amendment, and, for whatever reason, a large percentage of Americans will continue to create and expound on their pro-gun ideology. I can’t really sway people’s opinions and it’s in our constitution. I’m not going to even try.

Guns are simply part of the fabric of the USA. They always have been, and they always will be.

But, are they really as necessary as we think they are? Is it really necessary to give people access to silencers? To automatic weapons? Everytime I ask a pro-gun advocate about this, they point out that if ‘law-abiding citizens won’t be able to get guns, criminals will still have access to these kinds of weapons and law abiding citizens will not be able to defend themselves.”

I mean that’s the argument, right? We can ignore the fact that our founding fathers lived over 200 years ago, had no conception of cars, automatic weaponry, or mass communication. That doesn’t matter. The second amendment will always be the second amendment.

With this logic, how can I win?

So this isn’t about guns.

This is about students. It’s about teachers. It’s about communities. It’s about safety.

When suggestions like this are thrown around, not only does my heart sink, but my blood begins to boil.

Teachers become teachers because they love their subject matter and they want to make a positive impact in the lives of their students. They already learn how to defend our students in case someone brings a gun to school. They already have a ton of extraneous responsibilities and make frequent phone calls to homes. They already differentiate instruction for 30 plus kids. They already do so much for students from all backgrounds.

And now, the suggestion is that teachers carry guns to school and receive a bonus!? What kind of crazy logic is that?

There becomes a point where new discoveries and new social norms challenge old conceptions of what’s necessary. When our constitution was written, women didn’t have the right to vote. We had that love affair with prohibition for a while.

My point is this: laws change. Even the amendments in our constitution change, when time changes and the needs of a larger society change.

I don’t know how to solve the recent uptake in school shootings, but I do know one thing:

Offering teachers bonuses to carry guns to school is not a viable solution.

I would like to conclude with this quote from Martin Luther King Jr:

Rather than get caught up in the black and white words in our constitution, let’s think about the ways our world has changed since it has been written. Then, we can come up with policies that make sense in the greater context of the world in which we live.

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