The collegiate battleground

Last Thursday around noon, my phone buzzed. “Nine people killed by school shooter at community college in Oregon," a CNN alert glowed at me. I read the headline, internalized it and, sadly, felt very little. I have seen this before, countless times before. Too many college students have had their lives cut short because of gun violence. I don't want that to be me next year.

Next year, I will be one of 21 million Americans preparing for an amazing future at 4,140 institutions of higher education. Right now, I am in Brazil working for a year before I start college. But it is agonizing to sit here overseas and look toward my future in a potential collegiate warzone; my new home should not be a battleground. American students deserve a brighter future on college campuses, not a more violent one.

When faced with what happened at Umpqua Community College or at Sandy Hook, American gun rights activists must ask themselves, “What is the ultimate goal of widespread gun ownership?” They must ask, “What does a dream society where everyone owns a ‘protective’ weapon look like?” They must ask these questions because the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies have to be fighting for some end game. To me, an upcoming college first-year, when I see the NRA say things like “expanding background checks isn’t the answer,” it seems fairly obvious that gun rights supporters want a society where guns are easily accessible to all.

Whatever the NRA's imagined reality, the United States would not be safer if everyone had a gun, just as we would not be safer if people did not need to be tested in order to drive a car. Cars at least have an intrinsic purpose other than violence. Guns do not. But guns hold a special place in the heart of America, one that gives them a free pass -- even if they are the cause of 11,208 deaths every year (nearly 70 percent of all homicides).

The NRA has tweeted more than 30 times since Thursday’s tragedy; Oregon was explicitly mentioned once. Even its website is devoid of condolences. The organization does not even try to directly counter the obvious anymore because it can’t. When actual deaths occur, it can not say that more guns equals more lives saved. The NRA’s best solution is to pretend that guns had nothing to do with the 10 lives lost last week.  

There is no world in which everyone has a gun for protection and, as a result, gun-related homicides decrease. In that world, instead of punches, high schoolers might reach for their parents' Glocks; instead of screaming, an older sister might reach for her .45 in anger. There is no stable democracy where guns are everywhere legally, concealed in the pant legs of mothers, under the suits of fathers. That society is called anarchy. But if you truly believe that the Constitution supports near-universal gun ownership, then it also follows that the Constitution kills people and must be changed. We must all support and "defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;" guns give us 16,121 reasons annually to be among one of our greatest domestic enemies, and we must use legislation to defend ourselves against their prevalence.