On Tuesday, April 18, 34-year-old Joseph Eaton shot and killed his parents and two of their friends in their home in the town of Bowdoin before shooting 3 more people on Interstate 295 here in Yarmouth. Up until the shooting on the 18th, there had been 160 mass shootings nationwide, in which more than 4 people were killed, in 2023 alone. That is more than the total number of days that have passed this year.
All across the United States where the Second Amendment empowers people with the ability to purchase and own firearms, thousands of people have also fallen victim to gun violence. A horrifically massive amount of people are killed each year in gun-related deaths, such as suicide and homicide. In 2021 alone, over 48,000 people were killed by gun-related injuries, half of which being suicide. Maybe if the process of obtaining a firearm was made harder with background checks and mental health checks, people who might do damage to themselves or others could be prevented from doing so.
In Maine, it has been historically safe with there only being 5 other mass shootings for the past 80 years. However, that doesn’t change the insane fact that there have been mass shootings. Compared to the worst shooting our country has experienced – the Las Vegas shooting in which 60 people were killed and over 400 were injured – it may seem like our state is pretty safe. Compared to the rest of the developed world though, with most of our peers having firearms banned or heavily restricted, the US is terribly ill with the danger of gun violence.
For too long have shootings been overlooked as a sad byproduct of keeping our Second Amendment rights. Thoughts and prayers won’t bring back the thousands of victims who lost their lives to homicide and suicide. Only by looking at our country's peers may it be possible to find a real solution to this problem.
For example, in Australia in 1996, in Port Arthur, Tasmania, a shooting left 35 people dead and 23 more injured. Despite being a strong conservative, the prime minister at the time John Howard pushed for heavy gun restriction laws. A mandatory gun buyback as well as banning the sale of automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns cut down gun-related deaths from 2.84 out of 100,000 in 1996 to less than 0.9 in 2019; that’s over a 300% decrease.
Overall, I think that it will be beneficial to all people who value the safety of themselves and those around them if we learn from our peers and initiate stricter gun control. The right to life and safety should override the right to own assault weapons.
Comments