Petzold: How many more?
Megan Petzold/ Iowa State Daily
During the Iowa State National School Walk Out on April 20th, 2018, students from all walks of life gathered to hear more about gun violence and honoring those who have been impacted by it.
February 23, 2023
Students, families, friends, and even strangers mourn the losses of the Michigan State University college students Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner.
Along with those three students, “The suspect has been identified as 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
With three students deceased and five injured, I just have one thing to ask:
How many more?
As of Feb. 15, according to an article from USA Today, there have been 71 mass shootings nationwide.
“Last year, the number of school shootings and people killed or injured during those incidents hit a record high — 132 incidents…seventy-four people died and 190 were injured by firearms at schools across the country.”
This year, in two months alone, we have already endured almost half of the mass shootings there was last year. At this rate, there will be over 400 mass shootings in 2023.
How many more?
Around noon on Feb. 13, a 15-year-old high school student was killed due to an incident involving a firearm at a school in Dalhart, Texas. The family and the school suggest it was a complete accident. My question is, how did a 15-year-old get ahold of a gun?
So, where did this student get a gun, and, unfortunately, the main question crossing my mind is, what was their original intention when they got the gun that was used?
How many more?
I would love to say that changing the age limit for purchase, concealed carry and everything else revolving around gun laws is going to help the tragic events going on in America.
I would love to say that asking people to take additional tests or certifications will decrease the number of shootings, accidents and mass shootings.
I would love to blink and have this issue resolved. But unfortunately, complex issues such as this require complex solutions which I do not have.
Alone, I cannot find and enforce solutions to our nation’s issues. It takes a village and the understanding that if things do not change, we will just keep falling deeper into this hole we have created.
So, until we can come together and find a way to solve this issue, I’ll leave you with one thought.
How many more innocent lives are we willing to lose?
How many more children, college students and adults will be traumatized for their whole lives?
How many more people will continue to live in fear every day?
How many more?
David Jackson | Feb 27, 2023 at 9:45 pm
How many more?
Well considering magazine fed weapons have been available to buy in the US since the early 1900s (the AR15 in 1962) and mass public shootings, especially in schools, didn’t start to rise in escalating frequency until the fanfare of the 24hr news cycle of the late 1990s…
And that the majority of mass shootings happen in gun free zones where people are legally barred from defending themselves giving mass murders fee range to not only kill but reload as many times as they need until the police arrive to shoot back….
And that the Bastille Day attack in 2016 in Nice France a mass murderer killed more people running down a crowd in broad daylight with a rented truck than were killed in the worst mass shooting in US history in Las Vegas (that’s if you don’t count the US Government using the Army to massacre 150 Native Americans while confiscating their guns at Wounded Knee in 1890)…
Turns out the answer is: as many as it takes to get the gun control agenda passed, because addressing the epidemic of fatherless, SSRI drugged, godless, undisciplined young males isn’t even on the table because it’s been deemed politically incorrect to even talk about, and the facts of who commits mass shootings, in what settings, with what weapons, and whether or not they needed to take cover when reloading proves that so called “assault weapons” bans, standard “high” capacity magazine bans, “gun fee” zones, and “universal” background checks that are universal in name only. Moreover, they aren’t really designed to change anything except diluting the right to keep and bear arms amongst the common citizen to make them easier to control while rapists and murders have easier targets.
Until the utility of gun free zones is addressed, armed school security is addressed, background checks that prevent violent offenders and mentally unstable people who have been judged so by due process and not registration and confiscation schemes disguised as “universal” while doing nothing about black market guns and straw purchasers while confiscating weapons of those who have not had their day in court, nothing will change. And that’s the point, because they more that die the more emotional news videos there are to push their fear based agenda.
How many more? As many as it takes to push the gun control agenda.