Guns: where the status quo is murdering children

"Heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds" - Psalms 147:3

The world mourns for those who are broken. The massacre in Newtown, Connecticut has left 28 people dead. 20 of those people were children, brutally murdered in their own classrooms. It is the second biggest shooting in U.S. history and the third major attack in 2012, following the Aurora cinema killings and the murder of six people in a temple in Wisconsin.

Gun control is a contentous issue in the U.S. The constitution states that individuals have a "right to keep and bear arms" and this has supported the growth of American gun culture. But the constitution was written in 1787 when "arms" were pistols, muskets, swords and bows. The Founding Fathers were not psychic - they did not know what was to ome. 

Today, pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles hang from the shelves of Walmart. And it is easy to buy one with your week's shopping. If you are over the age of 18 and you pass a basic background check, you can be granted a license to buy firearms. Bread, cheese and bullets could be a typical shopping list.

The ownership of guns is on the decline, with one political scientist saying they are at all-time lows. This is promising and less guns mean less shootings. But ownership is not the key statistic. Over three quarters of the weapons used in killing sprees since 1982 were obtained legally. These future mass murderers were not declined a license. They passed the basic background checks and they were legally allowed to walk into a supermarket and purchase rifles and ammunition and then open fire on people in a mall or a cinema or a school.

I am not saying that every future mass murderer can be recognised years before they commit a crime. Nor am I suggesting that the background checks failed. No-one could ever see such atrocities coming. But they can be averted. Action can be taken to ensure that no individual having a bad week has the arsenal to murder people. 

You can start by getting guns out of supermarkets. Stocking guns in the same building as bread and milk is a recipe for disaster. If Americans are so intent on owning guns, you don't present them as a casual thing to go in the same shopping trolley as your toddler. Secondly, you remove heavy weaponry completely. The Second Amendment allows the individual to hold a gun to protect the "security of a Free state" but giving people the opportunity to own AK47's, grenade launchers and anti-tank weaponry is not protecting security. It is jeopardising public safety.

Thirdly, attitudes must change. Gun control is a moral issue and yet it is used as a political weapon. As the news of the Newtown filters in, politicians are rushing to say this is not the time to discuss gun control laws. When will it be the time? Where was the discussion after Aurora? Or Wisconsin? This is the perfect time to prevent such tragedies happening again. There is an argument that guns are impossible to legislate - no it is not. The rest of the world does it and while no country is without gun crime, it is nowhere near the level of America.

With each massacre, reaction to it follows a similar pattern. We go from shock to anger to a desire to change things, followed by nothing. America goes back to the status quo but today that status quo has murdered five year old children. Enough is enough. Politics must take a backseat and change must come about. If it does not, I fear the world will once again wake up to flags at half mast.