The United States has recently been plagued with a fiasco of mass shootings across the United States. From the murder of 20 children and six adults in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in December 2012 to the slaughter of seventeen at a Parkland, Florida high school in 2018, these events have had national impact.
The culprit, according to the radical left, is not the shooter, not the people around them, not the parents, not the principal, not the lack of security. The real culprit is the weapon of choice, an AK-47 automatic rifle. For decades now, liberals have been pushing for the nationwide ban and confiscation of these particular weapons as a means of protecting people, protecting children, protecting Americans. Could there possibly be a more obvious solution?
However, the eyes of the obvious are not always keen to the truth. It's surprising that the radical left wants to be judge, jury, and prison guard in the case of the people vs AK-47s. The obvious comes before the apparent. The obvious comes before the facts. The obvious comes before the truth. The obvious is no excuse for the law. You cannot convict AK-47s without due process of law. This includes the right to a fair and speedy trial.
If we were to give AK-47s the full due process that they deserve, what would the defense be? That's what we're visiting today. What are the main reasons that AK-47s should not be stripped from the hands of American citizens?
1) "Banned" Does NOT Mean "Controlled"
There are three parts to policy-making: the reason for the law, the letter of the law, and the enforcement of the law. There might be a great reason for banning AK-47s and the word "BANNED" might be quite clear; however, that doesn't actually stop people from doing something that's banned. One of the most basic scientific principles is that matter cannot be created or destroyed. When you burn wood, it turns into ash because it is made up of carbon, and carbon cannot be destroyed; rather, it simply changes forms.
By that same token, you can't just magically stop a process with just words. It will transform into something else very quickly. In this instance, I mean undocumented and under the table sales, also known as the black market. Tens of thousands of Americans are able to acquire weapons through illegal means each year, so the threat of an illegal market for AK-47s pending a ban is more than legitimate.
In fact, we've seen this sort of thing happen before by a Constitutional Amendment, and the result was so terrifying, it led to the repeal of the Amendment and a bunch of Hollywood and TV crossovers and blockbusters. The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the alcoholic beverages in the United States.
Did we see alcohol sales go away for good in the United States? Nope! In fact, alcohol consumption became even more common in the United States even though it was illegal. This is where Al Capone came into play. Al Capone was a mafia leader in Chicago during the Prohibition period who tucked away $60 million from illegal alcohol sales. Capone was best known for ordering many acts of gang violence, the most famous being the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
The biggest fear of banning AK-47s is that we completely lose the ability to track them altogether. The goal here is to stop school shootings and to save the lives of children. Assuming the Parkland shooting could have still happened if Nikolas Cruz had illegally obtained an AK-47, a ban on AK-47s would have done nothing to prevent that. Additionally, mass shootings would become even more prevalent if we banned, but failed to prevent AK-47s. Like with alcohol in the 1920s, we would have an entire market surrounding the illegal act, only this time murder will have become profitable. It would bring a whole new meaning to "dangerous business."
2) Crime is NOT Deterred by the Choice of Weapon
In most mass shootings since 1982, hand guns (not AK-47 assault rifles) were the weapon of choice. That's because crime itself is a phenomena that happens in the mind, and is carried out by the human body. AK-47s are tools that are used to commit crimes, but they themselves are not the ones put on trial. Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland, Florida school shooter, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the actions of himself, not his AK-47.
Ultimately, the amount, severity, and impact of mass shootings is all thanks to widespread mental health issues throughout the country. It has been estimated that one in five Americans deal with a mental health issue. Mass shootings begin with an unhealthy mind and develop as mental illness in America becomes more widespread.
In fact, if we're able to stop mass shootings across the country with an AK-47 ban, shouldn't we also be able to stop all crime? That would make sense, but the numbers simply don't support that claim. Nearly 2,000 crimes per 100,000 people happened in 2022 in the United States and the vast majority of these was without a doubt larceny and theft.
Committing crime in this country comes from the mind first, and very rarely does the mind go to mass shootings, but you also can't count the number of times that it has on two hands. Mass shooters don't care about the weapon. They care about the end result. Banning AK-47s won't stop them. In fact, banning any weapon won't stop them. Mass murders and crime will continue throughout the country, and people will continue to die.
3) Surrendering High Class Weapons Surrenders Freedom
America was founded on one principle: that government should not be self dependent, nor should the American people have to rely on government for anything. The word "anything" also includes protection. Our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is a Constitutional right to defend ourselves. This was carefully placed inside the Constitution for fear of future tyrannical government overreach.
This tyrannical overreach may not come for 100 years, but the idea that it could come from the United States 100 years from now is a scary but realistic scenario. We don't know what the next centuries have in store for our next generations and we certainly do not know whether or not we will even have a country 100 years from now. We will all be gone before that point.
The best thing to do is to ensure as much freedom and set in stone as many precautions for the United States as we possibly can. By eliminating the right of the public to have access to weapons that are capable of withstanding a tyrannical regime, we increase the likelihood that a tyrannical regime will take place. There is no reason to fear the people anymore, and mob bosses that profit from illegal arms sales will pounce. Think of it this way. Without the 2nd Amendment, Al Capone could have been president and his mob would have run the country. Now that's terrifying.
THE REAL SOLUTION: More Security in Hotspots
The real solution in all of this is to "fight fire with fire" as Bugs Bunny used to say. I find it interesting that elementary and high schools are being shot up at substantial rates, but only 13 college campuses have experienced school shootings since the 1960s. The main difference here: colleges have their own security teams while elementary and high schools do not.
Elementary and high schools need that same form of security right now, maybe even more so than colleges do. Active shooters target schools with minors for two reasons. First, the majority of people there are minors, which creates less resistance towards shooters. It's kind of easy to shoot people who don't know how to react to a gun in their face.
Second, there is no immediate threat to doing so. Nikolas Cruz was not arrested immediately after he murdered all of those children. He was caught and arrested later while on the run, far away from the victims. Law enforcement arrived on the scene long after lives had been lost.
The answer is that all schools need a response team. Each state education department needs to provide them for public schools and require them at private schools. There needs to be at least three officers on duty during school days and during extra-curricular activities. They should have their own part of the school that is closed off to students and they should be provided with surveillance of full the perimeter of the school so they can see a threat coming before it happens.
Ultimately, this sort of protection will protect schools like it does colleges. We can prevent a vast majority of school shootings across the United States even more than an AK-47 ban would. With the lives of children on the line, we must choose the correct strategy to protect them. It's time to face the reality that adding guns, not restricting guns, is the answer to mass shootings.
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