Owning firearms: Right or Risk?

On one Friday in August, several shooters killed four people were killed and wounded 14 more over a 24-hour period in Chicago. Add to that, ten people were injured in seven separate shootings across our fair city last Monday.

If you think this type of brutal violence is simply the risk we take to enjoy city life, think again. Recall the terrifying details of the horrific tragedy at a The Dark Knight Rises movie showing in small town Aurora, Colorado. 

The common factor among the seemingly weekly occurrences of brutal death and misery: the stunning availability of semiautomatic weapons.

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. And politicians are letting them.

Chicago city officials have reported more than 1,600 shootings in 2012. Last year’s Labor Day weekend saw 67 shot in New York City. Aurora butcher James Holmes legally bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition online, which did not raise any red flags with the company or the government.

I hear excuses rationalizing why everyday citizens should continue to have the right to own firearms: I need to defend myself if someone breaks into my house and it’s my constitutional right.

Fair? Yes, and no. 

Our forefathers were running around with muskets during that time, not semiautomatics. Something tells me they would have tweaked the Constitution if they knew that a weapon could fire up to 1,000 rounds per minute. 

Argue your right to own firearms with the people who just had to bury a loved one this summer. Better yet, go to the victims’ graves and complain that one’s use of a gun isn’t applicable to you. Just don’t expect agreement from a mother who can’t stop crying or the decaying corpse six feet under.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is proposing that the state enact a strict ban on all assault weapons, which would mirror a California law. But, thus far, neither the governor nor our state’s congress has made much progress.

With the presidential elections just two months away, I can’t help but agree with New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg: “Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country.”

More and more bodies are dropping each week because of gun violence; sympathetic words are falling on the dead and grieving’s deaf ears.

I vote enough with the political sparring and verbal fiscal fist fighting. Let’s stand up and demand that Obama and Romney are going to make it safe for parents, for students, for citizens of this country.