The controversy over gun safety and disputes over interpretations of the Second Amendment have long been at the center of our political discourse. Lately, we have witnessed violence perpetrated by individuals with guns at a horrifying scale and with frightening regularity. In our country, these tragic events seem to keep occurring through the use of military-style assault weapons and our government refuses to take action to address this issue.
In the United States, there were over 340 mass shootings in 2018 alone (a mass shooting is defined as an incident with four or more victims involved). Last year more than 40,000 people were killed by guns. FORTY THOUSAND! And 54% of women killed by their partners died because of a gun while gun-related deaths are the second leading cause of death for children in this country. In fact, the U.S. joins just five other countries to collectively account for over half of all gun-related deaths in the world. This is a travesty of our own making and we must work tirelessly to reverse the current downward spiral.
The truth is, our national disagreement over gun rights isn’t about the Second Amendment so much as profit maximization for the gun manufacturers. For the National Rifle Association, gun manufacturers’ lobbying arm, has calculatingly leveraged the Second Amendment as a cover for their greed. It seems that a great deal of us are increasingly disinclined to sacrifice the well-being of our children so that gun manufacturers can make more money. I stand steadfastly with my fellow Americans in this regard. With the understanding that the Second Amendment is secure, the same way every other Amendment in our Bill of Rights is, our right to bear arms does not come without strings attached. There are regulations, mandates, shared morality and common sense which all factor in when considering this issue and its broad ramifications for our collective safety and health as a society. Indeed, the second and third words in the Second Amendment are “well-regulated.”