Analytical Blog #2

Essential Question: What can our government change to avoid gun violence?

While reading Serial Killers and Mass Murderers by Niguel Cawthorne, I learned that on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman Jr. a deranged ex-marine, climbed to the top of a tower at the University of Texas, shot and killed 16 and injured 30 more. His crimes sparked national debate about gun control and the need to prevent mentally ill people from getting them. Connecticut state senator at the time, Thomas Dodd proposed a bill that made laws to obtain a firearm more difficult, but also to prohibit sales to criminals and mentally ill people.  Despite the bill, Charles Whitman Jr. would have still been able to purchase guns, because provisions on it did not apply to him. Before the incident, Whitman sought very brief counseling with a psychiatrist, but stopped going after a couple appointments. The psychiatrist that Whitman met with did not suspect he was a danger to himself or others at the time. 

Since Whitman's reign of terror, gun laws have gotten more strict to prevent mentally ill people from obtaining firearms, but it is still a very prevalent issue that is talked about everyday. Between 1938 and 1968 there were no major changes to gun laws in the United States. After Whitman's shooting, the government passed The Gun Control Act of 1968, which stated that firearms were to stay out of the hands of those not legally entitled to own them because of criminal background, age or mental incompetence or illness. Throughout the fifty years since the Gun Control Act of 1968, there have been steps forward, and steps backward. In 1994, assault weapons were banned, but the ban was lifted in 2004. On October 1, 2017, a man named Stephen Paddock legally purchased 23 firearms including semi-automatic AR-15 rifles which had been altered with "bump-stocks" which allow semi-automatic rifles to be fired as automatic. Under 2010 law, bump-stocks are legal to buy. Paddock shot killed 59 people and injured 500 when he opened fire out his hotel room window in Las Vegas. 58 people were killed, along with hundreds of others who were severely injured.

In wake of the many school shootings this year, people have been protesting to pushing to ban automatic weapons and having the authorities crack down on illegal gun sales. I believe if the government paid more attention to these issues and put public safety first, many people would still be alive.