Content warning: This article contains references to gun violence.
I’ve attempted to stay away from the news this past year for my mental health, but no matter how hard I try, news of mass shootings and gun violence plague my life. In reading ABC7 Eyewitness News reporter Kiara Alfonseca’s latest article, my heart sank deep into the ground. The headline states, “There have been more mass shootings than days in 2023.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 130 mass shootings in 2023 alone. Broadening the issue just a bit beyond mass shootings, the GVA reports that 410 kids under the age of 18 were killed because of gun violence — fewer kids graduated from my class in high school.
I feel helpless.
My 9-year-old niece who has a soccer match in a week and has been practicing since the fall. My 16-year-old annoying little brother who is frantically preparing to apply to colleges. My mom who looks all too similar to those killed in the Monterey Park shooting Jan. 21. It was Lunar New Year and she was out celebrating just as they were.
Monday morning in Nashville, Tennessee, six more lives were taken because gun control continues to be discussed politically rather than as a safety topic — both in legislative bodies and in society. Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and adults Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61. It was just another school day. It should have been just another school day.
I am immensely grateful that my loved ones are alive and well, but I can’t help thinking, “What if it was them?” All those who were killed in mass shootings were just living their lives as we all do until a bullet ran through them, leaving their bodies cold and forever still — their families left forever grieving.
The law has rarely provided me with any form of solace, but knowing that state governments have the power to adopt gun safety laws and possess police powers of health, education and welfare eases my sorrows a bit. If I couldn’t trust federal courts to make a change, at least I could have some hope that state governments would. Thank you, Tenth Amendment.
However, as laws regarding female reproductive care and child labor regress back to 1791, before the ratification of the Bill of Rights, I was unsurprised when I found out that the Supreme Court ruled New York’s law that those wanting an unrestricted concealed-carry gun license must show a “special need for self-defense” as unconstitutional.
This decision has set unimaginable consequences in motion.
United States District Judge Roger Benitez now has three pieces of major gun control legislation in front of him: the assault weapons ban that has been active since 1989, the 2016 large capacity magazine ban and an ammunition background check requirement that went into effect in 2019.
According to Los Angeles Times writer Kevin Rector, “Benitez ordered the state to identify historical laws analogous and ‘relevantly similar to’ each of the laws being challenged.”
Benitez has a clear history of overturning gun control legislation, but, to make matters worse, Benitez has once compared AR-15 rifles to Swiss Army Knives, stating in his 2021 ruling, “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle.”
Unless there is an imminent battle I am unaware of, the only battle the U.S. should be concerned about is the battle against gun violence. While there is a chance that California can appeal to the 9th Circuit and possibly bring the case back to the Supreme Court, what’s the point? People like Benitez will continue to get in the way of change if every new legislation is constantly seen by gun rights activists as a personal attack on their Second Amendment right.
A 2015 national Public Policy Polling survey found that 83% of gun owners support expanded background checks on all firearm sales — 72% of this group belonged to the National Rifle Association. Yet, on the very first page of the NRA website, they claim that “our rights are under attack like never before.”
There are those who believe that gun control is not the solution to gun violence in the U.S., but I find it hard to believe that these same people want kids to die. I still have that much faith in humanity.
Either side of the gun control argument is met with opposition from the other side. But it’s time we all understand that it doesn’t matter if you love or hate guns, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and children dying at the hands of gun violence isn’t either. Until we stop, innocent lives will be disregarded in favor of arguments.
Helen Nguyen is a senior writing about law and social issues in her column, “Law & Disorder.” She is also an opinion editor at the Daily Trojan.