As if the shooting earlier last week in Oregon hadn’t been enough, to my abject horror, I saw headlines reading of shootings in my home state, Arizona, and in Southern Texas.

As if a decade of gun tragedies in universities, elementary schools, military bases, churches and cinemas had not been enough, we needed three campus shootings in a week.

The circumstances surrounding each incident vary, but I am not writing to labor over those. I am also not looking to write another glowing, trite, banal and ultimately fruitless testimonial of the need to pay more attention to mental health. Let’s get political, folks. Let’s talk gun control.

The state I grew up in has some of the laxest gun regulations in the country, as evidenced by the dozen or so people – including former Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords – easily shot while attending a political event in front of a Tucson grocery store. I know what it is to grow up in a culture valuing the right to bear arms, and I am not talking about unclothed forelimbs.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this exactly, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Take note of the first part, “a well-regulated militia.”

If the National Rifle Association is supposed to fulfill that role, they should be dragged to court and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, because they are failing. If we do not have said militia, we need one or some sort of proxy system to fulfill one.

Secondly, there is a difference between interfering with the overall right of people to possess firearms and the right to possess semi-automatic or fully automatic assault weapons. Even some versions of pistols might fall into this nebulous category.

Moreover, the context of this amendment should be considered. Once, the United States did not have much of a standing army. As recently as WWI, most divisions were drawn up from volunteers if not out-rightly cobbled together from state militias and national guards.

That is how the Continental Army started; that was how the War of 1812 was fought; and that was how both the Confederacy and the Union fought the American Civil War.

If we need further evidence as to why guns should be regulated, a June 24, 2015, report by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) provides some.

It reports based on the Small Arms Survey that on average every 100 Americans owns 88.8 guns. The next highest rate of ownership is Norway, with 31.3 guns per 100 citizens. Drawing from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the CFR says that per every 100,000 Americans there are, per year, 3.21 firearm homicides. The next highest is Canada, with 0.51.

The report also notes the example of other countries. Australia, for one, experienced in 1996 the tragedy of the Port Arthur Massacre when 35 people were murdered and 24 injured with a semiautomatic rifle. Within two weeks, the then conservative, you read that right, conservative government pushed through the National Agreement on Firearms. “Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a ‘genuine need’ for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course … there have been no gun-related mass killings in Australia since 1996,” said the CFR.

The UK, Canada, Israel and Japan are also cited as paragons of effective gun control. Despite continued issues with guns, we do not hear year upon year about shootings in these countries in their public and vulnerable places.

I am not saying we have to give up all guns, but who owns them and how they come to own them needs to change. Whatever the ultimate regulations come to be, they need to be sensible, severe and soon.

As if the shooting earlier last week in Oregon hadn’t been enough, to my abject horror, I saw headlines reading of shootings in my home state, Arizona, and in Southern Texas. As if a decade of gun tragedies in universities, elementary schools, military bases, churches and cinemas had not been enough, we needed three campus shootings in a week.

The circumstances surrounding each incident vary, but I am not writing to labor over those. I am also not looking to write another glowing, trite, banal and ultimately fruitless testimonial of the need to pay more attention to mental health. Let’s get political, folks. Let’s talk gun control.

The state I grew up in has some of the laxest gun regulations in the country, as evidenced by the dozen or so people – including former Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords – easily shot while attending a political event in front of a Tucson grocery store. I know what it is to grow up in a culture valuing the right to bear arms, and I am not talking about unclothed forelimbs.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this exactly, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Take note of the first part, “a well-regulated militia.”

If the National Rifle Association is supposed to fulfill that role, they should be dragged to court and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, because they are failing. If we do not have said militia, we need one or some sort of proxy system to fulfill one.

Secondly, there is a difference between interfering with the overall right of people to possess firearms and the right to possess semi-automatic or fully automatic assault weapons. Even some versions of pistols might fall into this nebulous category.

Moreover, the context of this amendment should be considered. Once, the United States did not have much of a standing army. As recently as WWI, most divisions were drawn up from volunteers if not out-rightly cobbled together from state militias and national guards.

That is how the Continental Army started; that was how the War of 1812 was fought; and that was how both the Confederacy and the Union fought the American Civil War.

If we need further evidence as to why guns should be regulated, a June 24, 2015, report by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) provides some.

It reports based on the Small Arms Survey that on average every 100 Americans owns 88.8 guns. The next highest rate of ownership is Norway, with 31.3 guns per 100 citizens. Drawing from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, the CFR says that per every 100,000 Americans there are, per year, 3.21 firearm homicides. The next highest is Canada, with 0.51.

The report also notes the example of other countries. Australia, for one, experienced in 1996 the tragedy of the Port Arthur Massacre when 35 people were murdered and 24 injured with a semiautomatic rifle. Within two weeks, the then conservative, you read that right, conservative government pushed through the National Agreement on Firearms. “Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a ‘genuine need’ for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course … there have been no gun-related mass killings in Australia since 1996,” said the CFR.

The UK, Canada, Israel and Japan are also cited as paragons of effective gun control. Despite continued issues with guns, we do not hear year upon year about shootings in these countries in their public and vulnerable places.

I am not saying we have to give up all guns, but who owns them and how they come to own them needs to change. Whatever the ultimate regulations come to be, they need to be sensible, severe and soon.

Tyler Laferriere is a first year master’s student in applied economics and statistics from Phoenix, Ariz. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of the Office of Student Media.