We Americans need to ask ourselves a simple question. What do we value more: our communities and schools, or our beloved guns? This is the issue that has brought hundreds of thousands of students and adults out into the streets to lead our Congress to the right decision.
On March 14, students across America marched to ban the AR-15 and other semi-automatic weapons like it, as well as to memorialize the victims of the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings. As most of us know, the AR-15 is one of the most commonly used weapons in mass shootings in our country.
While protesting students and adults are fighting to put a ban on the AR-15 and other weapons like this, our Congress is more focused on banning bump stocks, which is a device that gives a non-automatic gun the ability to work as an automatic gun. But this seems to be a cover-up, a way for our government to show that it is enforcing “stricter” gun laws. In reality, would this ban on bump stocks have stopped the 17 deaths in the Parkland shooting? As much as we would like to think our government is listening to students all around the U.S., as of right now, it hasn’t passed any laws or regulations, and hasn’t set any plans for any real changes for the foreseeable future.