By Michaela Etienne
February 14 is Valentine’s Day, also known as the day of love. The day where you express to someone that they mean the world to you. Sadly, this wasn’t the case for the many students, teachers, and parents of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. February 14 will forever be known to these people as the day that they survived a mass shooting, a day where they lost 17 students and faculties, and also known as the day it all changed. All this chaos was caused by former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz, who opened fire using an AR-15 style rifle. The school shooting raised an important question: How and why can a 19-year-old be able to legally purchase a semi-automatic weapon with ease? Democrats proposed a bill so that the sale and ownership of semi-automatic weapons can be banned (HB219). Some of the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School went to watch the vote regarding the ban on assault rifles but were disappointed that the bill failed to pass. I surveyed Apopka High School students to get their opinions on the failed bill that bans the sale and possession of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
41.2% of students surveyed agreed with the ruling that this gun bill shouldn’t have passed. A student responded with “Gun rights are part of the 2nd amendment, and are also inherent to the 14th amendment meaning that if some are taken from some but not others then we are not having ‘equal protection under the law’. The first guns to be taken will be from the poor as they will least likely to be able to defend their selves in court. The poor are an overly proportionately people of color in this country. Meaning at the end of the day, taking guns away will start with taking the guns away from blacks and other minorities at a larger proportion than whites. This is not in line with the 14th amendments, nor should it even be an issue as it is a 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms.” While another student felt that “Guns aren’t the problem, it’s the people that use them and how they choose to do so. The government shouldn’t be held accountable for the idiotic actions of those whose desire is to misuse firearms.”
Another 41.2% of the students disagreed and felt that that the court should have banned the sale and possessions of semi-automatic weapons as well as high-capacity magazines. A student felt that “Automatic and Semi-automatic should be banned along with bump stocks. I think that there should be annual background checks that are more advanced. There needs to be more protection in schools, like more active police officers.” Another student added on saying, “The difficulty and long process it takes to acquire a driver’s license should at least be applied when purchasing a firearm. Mental health checks and tests about how, when, and when not to use guns should also be given to people who want to acquire guns. The age to purchase a gun should be at least 21 or older.” While someone else responded with “Only the people with government approval should carry a gun.”
Finally, 17.6% of survey takers felt neutral about the failure to ban the sale and possession of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazine. This student had a strong feeling toward the gun debate stating “Personally, I can’t stand either side of this debate. Everyone is so focused on guns and either keeping or banning guns that we ignore the actual problem. If everyone focused on solving the problem of people dying for no good reason, there would be no reason for all the arguing and surveys like this. There are other things that can be introduced to prevent these shootings from happening, but everyone just wants to talk about guns. I think the gun control debate is actively working against the safety of the people.” While another student had a totally completely different response from the last student’s statement “I don’t care about gun violence or gun control, and I would love to stop hearing about it.”
Six days after the school shooting a 7th grader at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Ohio, walked into school with a semiautomatic rifle and shot himself in the bathroom. Authorities later found that he had planned a school massacre, 80 rounds of ammunition were found in his backpack as well as an 8 step plan attack on his middle school. After hearing all this information, do you still feel that ban of bump stocks and being 21 to purchase a gun will help reduce the number of massacres around the United States?