Foreword:

I am not or do not consider myself to be radically on the political left or on the political right. I am just an ordinary middle of the political road citizen and I am appalled by the deaths I see and hear of around the country that have been caused by the violence perpetrated with firearms. But are firearms the cause or the scapegoat?

I have listed the mass shootings I know of, where four or more innocents were killed. We as a country have suffered from these horrible events. I am appalled by them, and I detest them, the senseless loss of life, and the pain and suffering of the innocent victims, their families, and their friends, that has resulted from them. This is just a partial list from the last fourteen years or so (as of March 2021). These were almost all done by lone gunmen:

April 2007 – The Virginia Tech shooting in Blacksburg, Virginia, 33 dead, 17 wounded.

November 2009 - The Fort Hood, Texas, Army Base shootings, 14 dead, 33 wounded.

July 2012 - The Aurora, Colorado Cinema shootings, 12 dead, 70 wounded or injured.

December 2012 - The Sandy Hook Elementary school of Newton, Connecticut shootings, 28 dead.

September 2013 – Washington Navy Yard shootings, 13 dead, 8 wounded.

June 2015 - The Charleston, South Carolina Black Church massacre, 9 dead.

October 2015 - The Roseburg, Oregon community college campus shootings, 10 dead, 8 wounded.

December 2015 - The San Bernardino workplace holiday party shootings, 14 dead, 17 wounded.

June 2016- The Orlando, Florida shootings at the Pulse nightclub, a gay establishment, 50 dead, 53 wounded.

July 2016 – In downtown Dallas, Texas, 5 dead.

January 2017 – The Fort Lauderdale, Florida airport, 5 dead, 6 wounded.

October 2017 - The Las Vegas Country Music festival massacre, where a lone gunman shot from the thirty-second floor of a hotel, 58 dead, 887 wounded or injured.

November 2017 - The Sutherland Springs, Texas church shootings, 26 dead, 20 wounded.

February 2018 – The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings in Parkland, Florida, 17 dead.

May 2018 – The Santa Fe, Texas high school shootings, 10 dead, 10 wounded.

June 2018 – A newsroom of a community newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, 5 dead, 2 wounded.

October 2018 – The Tree of Life Synagogue Sabbath service shootings near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 11 dead, 6 wounded.

November 2018 – The Thousand Oaks, California bar shootings, 12 dead.

February 2019 – The Aurora, Illinois factory shootings, 6 dead, 7 wounded or injured.

May 2019 – The Virginia Beach Municipal Building shootings, 12 dead.

August 2019 – The El Paso, Texas Walmart shootings, 23 dead, ~24 wounded.

August 2019 – The Dayton, Ohio downtown entertainment district shootings, 9 dead, 27 wounded.

August 2019-The drive-by shootings that stretched across Midland and Odessa, Texas, 8 dead, 25 wounded.

February 2020 – The Molson Coors Beverage Company brewing complex in Milwaukee, Wisconsin shootings, 6 dead.

March 2020 – The shooting spree across five miles of Springfield, Missouri, 5 dead.

March 2021 – The shootings at three different Atlanta Day Spas, 8 dead

March 2021 – The Boulder, Colorado Kings Soopers supermarket shootings, 10 dead.

They are not the only incidents that we have to be aware of, never forget, there are more I am sure and this listing does not include the individual and group shootings that take place as a result of individual violence, domestic violence, and gang violence in all major cities across the country and even those that aren’t so major.

Discussion:

Whenever there is a mass shooting many, many of the politicians, the talking heads on television, and the print media come out calling for new Gun Control legislation but is it truly necessary? We already have all sorts of Gun Control laws that are supposed to protect the public from these horrible events. Most of these laws are well thought out and written and yet, we still have mass shootings. What is the problem? Why do these events continue to occur? What are we as a society missing? What are we doing wrong?

How do we protect the individual rights of the great majority of the owners of firearms and at the same time protect the public from mass shootings? The right to own a firearm is fundamental to our being in this country. It is a protected right of the second amendment to our constitution, the founding document of our government.

When the individual events are analyzed a lot of perpetrators are found to have mental issues and should never have had access to a firearm. How did they get them then? Who dropped the ball and didn’t properly secure their firearm? Also on analysis we see that there were warning signals of a pending crisis that triggered the perpetrator. He or she had changed their interactions with people; they were not the same as they had been. They had become irascible, argumentative, anti-social, and even combative with friends and coworkers or some combination of these traits. People no longer wanted to be around them and may even have perceived them to be dangerous to themselves and/or others. They were acting out and asking, begging for help. Why didn’t they get that help? I can understand the need for “red flag” laws. In theory I think they are a good idea but I am afraid of their misuse as a means to confiscate a citizen’s legally owned firearm. A lot depends on how the law is written. Who determines the need to temporarily or permanently confiscate the weapon? What is the term of the confiscation? What are the criteria needed to be met to authorize the confiscation? How does a citizen contest the confiscation? What is required to return the weapon to its owner?