Since my birth on August 5th, 1999, the U.S. has seen the record amount of deaths in modern mass shootings broken four different times, twice in the last two years, and once in the last two weeks. This latest attack in Las Vegas, leaving 59 dead, and over 500 wounded, completely horrified me. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, had 23 guns in his hotel room, a dozen bump stocks for rapid fire, and thousands of rounds of ammunition that were not used. Along with this, he had another 1600 rounds in his car and an arsenal of more guns at his residence. This monster was not planning on stopping until his position was discovered. The numbers alone should be enough to scare everyone reading this article. This shocking trend of horror and atrocity should be enough to encourage something to change. The fact that this trend isn’t going to stop, should initiate something, anything!  Instead, I continue to see nothing done, nothing to protect the people of this country, and nothing to suggest that when I have a family someday, they will be safe. It would be beyond worth it to try several of the proposed laws and ideas that I will share below instead of continuing with the same unsuccessful laws that are in place.

There needs to be more thorough background checks and mental health checks every time someone purchases a firearm. While the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act requires background checks on most firearm purchases, these background checks only look for history of a criminal record, drug use, or mental health issues. While this looks good on paper, it has many loopholes and problems. First of all, when it comes to mental health, states often don’t send these mental health reports to weapons dealers, due to privacy laws. This is concerning considering how many mass shooters appear to be deeply troubled and unstable. By requiring a mental health check, it would make it more difficult for those with mental  issues to purchase weapons. This would also take into account those who may have developed issues recently, or whose problems were not noticed by others. This check should be required yearly, along with renewal of a person’s gun license, so the owner is still deemed fit to own the firearm. Another major problem with these background checks is they can be bypassed if the firearm dealer is not sent back the background check from the FBI in three days. After the three days, the dealer can proceed with the sale regardless, which is contributing to thousands of sales a year. In addition, when purchasing a gun, the buyer’s identification is not checked beyond a simple look at their card, meaning fake identification is easy to use. These background checks can be completely avoided in some states by buying from an individual seller and not a dealer. These deals, which are completed in high numbers, require no background check at all. Any person can buy them, with few questions asked.

This brings me to my next proposed law, private sellers should be banned, and guns should only be sold from federally licensed gun dealers. This would make it far more difficult for someone who should not be allowed a gun to get one. It would also be wise to enlist a federal gun registration in order to keep track of the people who own a specific gun, and hold them responsible if any harm is caused with their gun. This would further discourage private selling of guns, as people would not want to be held responsible for the actions of those they sell their guns to.

Finally, it would be in America’s best interest to ban assault weapons again. I refuse to believe anyone needs 23 assault rifles as Mr. Paddock had. These weapons go beyond self defense and hunting, they have one main purpose, and that is to kill other humans. There is a reason the word assault is in the name. I completely understand the argument that guns are needed for self defense, and that we must protect our Second Amendment rights, but assault weapons are beyond these two arguments. The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. It is now 2017, a whopping 226 years later. Not in their wildest dreams could the authors of this amendment have imagined the weapons of mass destruction and horror available to us now.

Thomas Jefferson himself said this about the constitution, “Time and changes in the condition and constitution of society may require occasional and corresponding modifications”. It is high time we took the words of one our founding fathers into consideration and change our ways and laws. I will leave you with this, Harvard researchers came up with one pretty simple discovery: more guns means more gun deaths, and the less amount of guns there are, the less amount of gun deaths there are. According to the University of Boston, per million people in America, there are 29.7 homicides by gun. The next closest to this is Switzerland with 7 homicides per every million people. So with this, I implore you readers, my friends and classmates, open your minds and help create a safer future for our families and us.

Will Hanigan 

Opinion Writer