Gun Control: Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton

We have a murder problem in the U.S. That’s undeniable.

- Sensible gun legislation is not the end-all-be-all.

- Doing nothing is not the answer.

- Universal background checks is a start.

I’ve worked in buildings for 16 years, where the first thing you have do to get into the building is walk through a metal detector. I’ve become used to it. Let that sink in. I’m a teacher. I work somewhere that needs metal detectors to protect the employees, students, and guests. It’s a place where Philadelphia police have an office.

In order to teach children, I need to have a child abuse clearance, an FBI clearance, and a criminal background check. And we should have those clearances done every five years. So what’s wrong with background checks for gun owners?

In PA, teachers cannot carry guns, and I am thankful for that. Think about what goes on in a classroom in a 45 minute period. Our attention is constantly being pulled in a million directions. And there is so much tension in schools. Carrying a weapon would be a recipe for disaster.

My brother is a cop. I think about him often and how safe he is even with a bullet proof vest. There are cop killer bullets out there.

I think about one of my sisters, who is also a teacher. I think about my children, who all go to different schools.

I think about the other sister, who is a pastor, and my mom, who works in a church.

In all of these places, mass shootings have occurred.

I had a conversation last year with a colleague, who is a former Marine and owns guns. He showed me videos of him shooting, all in a safe location.

When I was a Boy Scout, I shot rifles.

I get why people want to own guns.

But do we need a magazine that can hold 100 bullets? (Dayton)

Do we need AK47s and AR15s?

One of the reasons that the police first reported that there were multiple shooters in El Paso is because people witnessed people carrying concealed weapons. And all of those people, who had concealed weapons in Walmart, that day, none of them opened fire on the murderer. There were likely reasons. I won’t blame them here.

In Gilroy, the murderer bought his gun in Nevada, where it was legal to purchase his weapon, and crossed state lines.

Are guns bought and sold illegally? Of course they are!

If we ban assault weapons, will criminals turn them in? Of course they won’t.

Are violent video games to blame? No! Japan plays more violent video games than any other country in the world, and they don’t have a gun murder problem.

Is mental issue the problem? In most cases, mental issues are not a factor.

So, what’s the problem? And how do we fix it?

We know in El Paso, the murderer quoted this President on wanting to stop the invasion of Hispanics. It was in his manifesto.

In Dayton, we don’t know yet. We don’t know what caused him to murder his sister and several others.

In Gilroy, white supremacist rhetoric was used to justify the murders. White supremacy was also in the manifesto of the El Paso murderer.

But what about what happens on the streets every day of places like Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, etc.? They don’t classify as mass murders. They’re individual murders. And so many of those individual murders occur every day.

As for the argument that we need our guns to rise up against an oppressive government like the Revolutionaries did... in 1776, when the U.S. declared its independence from Britain, the army and the citizens owned the same exact weapons.

We can’t claim that any more. Individuals cannot own a fighter plane, a tank, bombs, nuclear weapons, etc.

So, if we restrict those weapons to the military, why do allow military style weapons like AK47s and AR15s?

We have a murder problem in the US. We’re not addressing it. We’re not addressing in Congress. We’re not addressing it in the White House. We’re not addressing it in the courts.

But we’re also not having these conversations outside of the government. Gun folks don’t want any gun control. (That’s not true, at least not for all of them). Non-gun people don’t want anyone owning guns (again not completely true).

So, what’s the answer. It’s not an easy one. The right doesn’t have the right answer. The left doesn’t have the right answer. The middle doesn’t have the right answer.

We’re not talking. We, as a society, are not being good role models.

Something has to be done. The White House Twitter feed says that something has to be done urgently. I wrote to them that urgency is sure moving slower than what the word suggests. That was before the Dayton shooting.

I worry about the future every day. My anxiety is so bad that I hate getting in the car with everyone that lives in my household. My brain says that if we’re not all together, we’re safer.

Last thought. Last night, a sign at a mall in Utah fell, and a motorcycle in New York backfired. In both cases, people ran because they thought the sound in each case was a gun shot.

What kind of America do we live in, if we don’t know whether or not we will get shot on any giving day?