Steve Frey
Add Jacksonville to the list. Yes, add Jacksonville, Florida to the list of cities that have now experienced a mass shooting.
As of the writing of this column, there were two dead and nine wounded. Two others were injured in the rush for the exits. The gunman, as is often the case, committed suicide after his murders.
This was at a videogame competition. The weapon of choice this time was a handgun with a laser sight. The shooter was one of last year’s champions in the tournament. Was this mass shooting over a video game loss?
Now, I realize that some of you couldn’t care less about more people being shot dead or wounded. To you, they are acceptable collateral damage to protect a more significant priority: opposing any and all gun safety legislation.
Oh, sure, you will solemnly express “thoughts and prayers,” as you have in the past and will in the future, but within a day or two the whole incident will be old news, and you’ll be focusing on the Hokies’ defense this year, the upcoming concert at the Berglund Center or some other critical life event.
There are others who are thinking about the victims—two dead human beings having a good time at a video competition just before being shot to death. Eleven wounded or injured people who will never be the same again. Some may be disabled for life (if not physically, most likely emotionally).
I realize that people who see these deaths as just an unfortunate occurrence are not going to change their minds about the issue of gun safety.
They have decided that nothing in the realm of gun safety can be done to prevent massacres with guns, and that gun safety is just an attempted infringement of their rights. They care too much about guns to change.
At the same time, the people who sincerely care about the deaths of innocent people and are in favor of logical safety steps that may not prevent all shootings, but may stop some, are not going to change their minds either. They care too much about people to change.
In May, after the slaughter of high school students in Parkland, Florida, I shared in this column a list of common sense gun safety ideas. Here are those “Big Ten” concepts:
1. Find ways to prevent mentally ill people from having guns.
2. Prevent violent criminals from having them (terrorists on a watch list fit here, too).
3. Domestic abusers should not have a gun.
4. Have intense background checks and a sufficient waiting period to complete them. Of course, these checks have to be universal across the United States (for example, if Chicago enacts strict gun laws, but criminals can obtain them a few miles away in Gary, Indiana, Chicago will continue to have problems with guns).
5. Eliminate all background check loopholes for gun shows, private sales, etc.
6. Enact safety rules where guns must be locked in a safe or with gunlocks to prevent anyone but the owner from using them. If the owner is negligent, he is at fault, too, if, for example, a child shoots a brother or other crimes are committed.
7. Magazines should be limited to 10 or fewer rounds so that responders have a chance to intervene when the shooter is reloading.
8. “Bump stocks,” which create the effect of automatic weapons, should be banned. Include silencers and armor-piercing bullets here, too.
9. Combat-style assault weapons should no longer be sold, and current owners must obtain a special license for use only in target practice at licensed facilities.
10. You must hold a permit for each gun you own.
As mentioned in the past, this does not preclude anyone from having a gun for hunting, target practice or home protection.
This is not a general ban on guns; it is a list of common sense regulations that will limit the opportunity and severity of mass shootings.
I know the arguments—guns don’t kill, people do; you can kill someone with a car, and you wouldn’t ban cars; if you take away guns only criminals will have them; the Constitution provides the liberty to have as many weapons and whatever kind you want, etc.
Again, this is not a ban on all weapons, limiting the 2nd Amendment, etc. These are merely steps that can be taken to limit the carnage.
Remember to add in school resource officers; physical building adaptations; school staffing with counselors, psychologists and social workers; strict enforcement of gun laws; funding for community mental health outreach, etc.
People also like to break this down into a liberal vs. conservative issue. It is not as simple as that. In a June 2017 Quinnipiac poll, 94 percent of Americans believed there should be background checks. Nobody thinks mentally ill people, terrorists, domestic abusers or violent criminals should have weapons, do they?
No, this issue has been politicized, but most Americans believe there are steps that can be taken to stop the killing.
It is time to break this cycle. It is time for solutions, not idle acceptance that massacres like this are normal. Americans should never lose their sense of outrage that someone’s son, mother, sister, brother or daughter has been killed by a mass murderer.
The only way to change America’s endless list of cities with a mass shooting is to elect representatives in November who will have the moral and ethical courage to put in place common-sense gun safety legislation to save lives.
We are never going to change the minds of that portion of society who believe that American culture revolves around guns, so it is necessary to use legislation, research, data, compassion, the election of representatives who care and that sometimes elusive gift—common sense—to better safeguard society.
I know, some are rolling their eyes as they read this. They are already lining up in their minds the usual talking points they would use to dismiss these suggestions as so much anti-2nd Amendment nonsense.
But if you do care about Americans being shot down in our streets, theaters, schools, well, everywhere (yes, we realize, especially in Blacksburg, that everyone is vulnerable), you can make a difference—vote in November for a candidate who also cares.
Steve Frey is a writer and CEO of Ascendant Educational Services based in Radford.
