As a conservative leaning guy, I don’t get the GOP’s wacky stance on the gun rights issue. The 2nd amendment says:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
This means the right to state militias, and, more broadly, the allowance of regular citizens to own guns. It does not mean that things like bans on assault rifles are somehow illegal.
That being said, this emotional political response to incidents like these are wrong. Here are some facts on violence:
“‘From 1993 to 2015, the rate of violent crime
declined from 79.8 to 18.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older’, says the Bureau of Justice Statistics in its most recent comprehensive report (published last October, using data through 2015). ‘Over the same period, rates for crimes using guns dropped from 7.3 per 1,000 people to 1.1 per 1,000 people. The homicide rate is down from 7.4 to 4.9.’”
As the son of a VA tech shooting survivor, I find it deeply offensive when people try to politicize these emotional events. We should all repudiate people who make blanket statements like “all gunz stockpile them now!” and “guns must be banned now now now stop the killing !nra bad!”. We need leaders with common sense, who can pass common sense laws that can sensibly regulate the firearms we are allowed to have as a natural right. We should stop listening to politicians who try to emotionally bait people into supporting them.