A few weeks ago, I went to see a movie with my sister near my apartment on the Upper West Side. Throughout the previews I couldn’t stop looking behind my shoulder. Right before the movie started, the little AMC mascot popped up on the screen and pointed out the escape exists in case any suspicious characters appear. All I could think about as the opening credits rolled across the screen was that someone might shoot up this theater. And if that did happen, we would be helpless.
Now, I’ve been known to be a little anxious, to make mountains out of molehills every once in awhile. But recently I shared my fear of movie theaters with a friend, and she immediately responded in kind. Just this past July, a drifter with a gun killed two women, aged 21 and 33, during a screening of the romantic comedy Trainwreck in Louisiana.
Speaking to this friend got me wondering how my fellow students felt about the shootings that have become so commonplace over the past decade. I asked them what they thought of gun control, mental illness, terrorism, and mass shootings.
Many people I asked felt unequal to the task of solving, or even formulating, an opinion on the gun control debate.
Some just didn’t feel fully informed on the issue; as one student put it, “I haven’t done such extensive research on the topic and get swayed in either direction way…too easily.” I appreciated her student’s honesty. The topic encompasses a minefield of controversial issues including personal liberties and government overreach, mental illness, radical terrorism and American gun culture. The often emotionally charged arguments on both sides, appealing to our liberty or compassion or fear tug at us so fiercely that sometimes, it can feel like being pulled by pigtails on either side of the head.
But even some students who seemed very informed on the issue felt unable to tie their knowledge together into any sort of political stance. One student spoke with me about successful gun control patterns in other countries like Israel, and the shortcomings of gun control due to the black market in arms. She ended off by saying, “I think both sides have different issues playing for them.”
Another mentioned the fact that in “other countries, policemen don’t even wear guns, and that works for them,” but also noted that, “in Israel, there are many civilians with guns, and I think that works for them.” Torn between shunning arms and embracing them, she added, “I’m not sure what would work best for us.”
Of the students who did have clear-cut opinions on the issue, the range of stances did not vary greatly; everyone supported stricter gun control in some form. This should come as no surprise. Although our college community may be more conservative than most, the majority of the student body does not come from regions with deeply rooted gun culture. Since we are less attached to the idea of guns, most of us don’t take issue with federal or state limitations placed on their purchase.
Among these students, some favored stronger measures than others. One student suggested “tight control over who could get guns,” but acknowledged that “people need to protect themselves,” and so guns should “not be completely abolished.” In addition to stricter gun control, another student emphasized the importance of making automatic and semi-automatic weapons illegal since they “are literally designed to kill people.”
Another student suggested that “all forms of arms” should be banned since the “average person is no longer capable of using to them to protect” himself or herself. Since the danger of arms has outweighed the benefits of protection, she explained, banning all forms of weaponry is the only “way to adapt” to our new reality of “increased mass shootings.” This opinion proved to be a minority amongst the Stern students I spoke to, but gave an interesting look into the ire many feel at the repetitive nature of the mass gun violence in this country.
When discussing the need for stricter background checks, only one student I spoke with brought up the need to screen licenses to prevent those who have been radicalized from purchasing guns. Most students seemed more concerned with individuals, like that drifter in Louisiana, who suffered from mental illness. One student suggested “psychological tests” in order to prevent those with mental illness from purchasing guns, although she acknowledged that this would take “a lot of money…and time.”
Sadly, the nature of change is that if often takes a lot of money and a lot of time. Finding the right solution to the surge in gun violence and mass shooting in our country is no exception to this rule. But if we commit to understating the nuance of this issue, or even to just admitting when we don’t understand, as many of my fellow students did, maybe we can bring change a little bit faster.