By Theodore Mattheiss
Opinion Editor
Another day, another shooting.
On April 27, a man walked into the Chabad of Poway Synagogue, north of San Diego, and opened fire on the innocent people inside. His actions resulted in one dead and three wounded victims.
The man responsible, 19-year-old John Earnest, reportedly barged into the synagogue yelling anti-Semitic slurs and holding an assault rifle.
Yisroel Goldstein, the rabbi, tried to talk to the shooter after he opened fire, but he kept shooting. A woman named Lori Kaye jumped in front of the rabbi to protect him from the bullets and was fatally wounded as a result, according to the New York Times. The rabbi was shot in both hands.
It’s been reported that the shooter’s weapon jammed or malfunctioned in some other way, preventing a greater loss of life. The shooter left the building when his gun stopped working and was apprehended by the police shortly thereafter.
Earnest is only the latest in a long line of notorious American shooters who have been able to injure, disfigure, and kill crowds of innocent people by taking advantage of how easy it is to get one’s hands on a firearm in this country.
I’m not saying that the government ought to go around and gather up everybody’s guns, but something needs to be done. Some kind of change has to happen that fights the rampant violence perpetrated by psychos wielding firearms in the United States.
The time to implement better gun legislation in our country has long since passed. Until steps are taken to at least attempt to get guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, we will continue to see news of shooting deaths with the same frequency we do now. I’m tired of it. I’ve been tired of it.
I’m writing about this as my last article for The Elm because I believe it’s one of the most important issues facing our country today. This particular kind of terrorism doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world with the regularity that it does in the U.S., and the widespread availability of guns is the reason for it.
Whether we take steps to control the sale of weapons, or implement “red flag” policies to remove them from people who may soon harm others, something has to be done.