Tori Bianco, one of the co-directors of the Politics Society editorial, In the Zeitgeist, is a sophomore here at NYU. She is planning to study International Relations and Spanish. Outside of the classroom, she is a member of the NYU Women’s Soccer team, as well as the sorority Zeta Tau Alpha. In her home state of Nebraska, she is involved with two non-profits. One, Secondhand Support Inc, which she founded with her dad and sister, helps donate athletic equipment to underprivileged areas and promotes education and involvement for girls. The other is called Launch Leadership. Through Launch, she helps facilitate camps that foster leadership in high school and middle school students. For fun, she loves music and has attended more concerts than she can count.
Let’s Shoot for Common Sense Instead
As a country, the United States leads the world in many fields, from economics to military capabilities to film production. Despite being a well-functioning democracy, the United States also leads the world with its alarming gun statistics. According to a study from the University of Alabama, about 31% of the world’s mass shooters are American. Also, while the United States accounts for only 4.4% of the global population, the U.S. holds around 42% of the world’s guns. Evidently, the presence of arms in the United States exceeds other countries, despite our well established democracy and capitalist culture. Such themes would appear to coincide with a less violent society, but that is not the case. Since the startling Columbine High School shooting in 1999, where thirteen people were killed and over twenty injured, mass shootings have continued to ensue in public places such as Sandy Hook Elementary school, the Las Vegas Strip, and a night club in Orlando. It has been almost two decades since Columbine, but why does it feel as if nothing has changed?
Since the birth of our nation, guns have been debated in the eyes of the law. Ratified in 1791 by the original 13 states, the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States declares that, “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” (US Const. amend. II). During the time of the ratification of the Constitution, the founding fathers and framers of the Constitution had lived through a period where their former government used military resources to oppress the people. Fast forward to the present, citizens no longer furnish their homes with arms in order to form a militia, but rather for self-defense or leisure activities, such as hunting. However, not all guns are used for those purposes. Therefore, the access to gun purchases must be federally regulated. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean the abolishment of the Second Amendment; this is not tangible. Nevertheless, “common sense” gun policy must be implemented in order to secure the promise of a tomorrow.
One might ask, what does “common sense gun policy” entail? As stated by the March For Our Lives mission campaign, common sense gun policy includes the following:
- Fund gun violence research
- Eliminate absurd restrictions on the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives)
- Universal background checks
- High-capacity magazine ban
- Limit firing power on the streets
- Funding for intervention programs
- Extreme risk protection orders
- Disarm all domestic abusers
- Gun trafficking
- Safe storage and mandatory theft reporting
Forming policy that actors across party lines agree upon seems nearly impossible since representatives of each ideology remain steadfast in their beliefs. Legislators that are funded by the NRA and whose constituents support the Second Amendment will continue to block any overbearing laws in order to solidify their position of power. Meanwhile, proponents of implementing new gun restrictions, generally Democratic representatives, continue to draft policy that is destined to fail in the eyes of a Republican dominated Congress. If members of Congress continue to disregard the arguments of their opponents and the faults in their own respective arguments, then Congress will be perpetually stuck in a vicious cycle of standstill policy. When legislators vote with to their campaign’s financial needs in their mind rather than the American population as a whole and executive bodies fail to enforce any implemented restrictions, gun policy bills will not be the only thing getting shot down in this nation.
—Tori Bianco
