On Monday, an extremist couple in Las Vegas shot two police officers and one civilian. The wife ended the rampage by shooting her significant other, then herself. The reason is not clear as to why this even occurred but CNN speculates it is because they had extreme, anti-law-enforcement views.
There comes a point when too much freedom can be dangerous. There comes a point when the government needs to put its foot down. People need to come together to rethink the definition of freedom. Some things need to be regulated in a tighter fashion to maintain Americans’ well-being.
Three innocent people died because two people did not like law enforcement and because they obtained the guns to carry out the tragedy with ease.
To clarify, this is not a column on gun control but a commentary on the abuse of freedom.
If freedom for one person can harm others if it is abused, then we must consider taking that freedom away.
For example, take the proposed freedom to smoke marijuana. If everyone goes out and buys weed, nobody is going to be harmed because of it. Our country may be red-eyed and relaxed, but that’s about as far as the harm goes.
Or take the freedom of marriage, more specifically the issue of marriage equality. If all the gay couples in America go get married right now, nobody will be hurt in any emotional or physical way.
If the Second Amendment freedom is abused, people get hurt. It’s a fact people can and often do die if they are shot. People who kill for any unjustified reason have already abused this freedom countless times.
A good number of people in our country believe it is their right to own a gun to protect themselves, but if nobody has a gun than what’s the point of having your own?
I’m sure people would say that confiscating all guns would not be possible, or would just create an unwanted revolution against the government, but I think that the United States needs a timeout. Maybe confiscating all guns would be extreme, but too many innocent people have died by gunfire for the sake of protecting the trigger-happy.
I don’t think it is fair for Americans to be subjected to these killers who own guns and run the risk of being shot every time they leave their houses.
To me, having to fear being killed by an unknown shooter is the opposite of what it feels to be free.
The woman who was killed by the Las Vegas shooters was simply standing in front of a Wal-Mart. She had no connection to law enforcement, which was the speculated reason for the shooting in the first place, and was going about her day normally.
Even if this innocent woman had a gun on hand, she would not have been able to defend herself, considering how fast the event took place. She had no idea that she was about to get shot, but it happened and we cannot get her life back.
As an American, we are lucky to have so much freedom, and of course, we abuse it. The popular phrase, “This is why we can’t have nice things” applies here wonderfully. We shouldn’t be able to have freedom for everything we wish if we are just going to use it for evil.
So, get it together, United States. Let’s not abuse the freedom that makes us who we are so we can keep what we were built on.
