Shootings

In Professor Sweeney’s English class we talked about an article we read in the New Yorker entitled “Shootings” by Adam Gopnik. This article was about the “Gun Law” in America and one of the examples they used was the Virginia Tech shooting. After the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech police officers were cleaning up the dead bodies from around the campus. All they could hear was the ringing cell phones of the students who were killed. We can only imagine the feelings running through the police officers because they knew who was on the other side of the phones. They knew it was families trying to make sure their children were ok. However after no answer the families knew that the child was one of those unfortunate students who were killed. Then the big question came up. Why was an obviously disturbed student with a history of a mental illness allowed to purchase a gun whose intention was to kill? Yes, this probably could’ve been prevented if America had stricter gun laws. However I don’t know what side I agree with because guns don’t kill people but people kill people. So even if all the guns were gone would that stop us from killing? Probably not, I was told that hurt people hurt people. So there is no doubt in my mind that it was something hurting in that person that killed all those Virginia Tech students. This article brought up my question. Could the horrific shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School been prevented by the same way the Virginia Tech shooting could have been prevented ?