How To Stop A Bullet

4 Pages 1026 Words

How to Stop a Bullet

On April 20, 1999, a pair of troubled teens entered Columbine High School with one motive, murder. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris left fifteen dead and wounded twenty more, their act of insanity lives on infamously as the biggest school shooting in our nation’s history. Their actions significantly changed the lives of every teacher and student at that school. Those shots “heard round the world” changed the innocence of attending school and affected every single person in this country one way or another. The students and teachers of Columbine will never walk the halls without having fear, every fire drill, every April 20th, every loud noise; will tie their intestines into knots of anxiety. Could this tragedy have been avoided?
A recent reoccurrence of school shootings, including the massacre at Columbine, has added momentum to gun control issues in Congress. Advocates of strict gun laws are lobbying for mandatory child safety locks, tougher background checks, and other controls that they believe will cause gun violence to rise. Approximately 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1999 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. According to estimates, firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. Due to the recent increase in crime, school shootings, and other gun related violence, it is imperative that Congress pass new firearm control laws, although gun activists will say this is impeding upon their rights, it is necessary for the sake of our nation’s safety. Even though society benefits from guns in the hands of responsible citizens, the fatalities due to firearms steadily increase. Our society has passed laws regulating the ownership and use of firearms, and more legislation is being considered. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, s...