Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States
Personally I&#x27;m conflicted on this issue, and not sure what to think.<p>On the one hand I am from Massachusetts, was raised in an anti-gun environment, and have never owned a gun. I remember a particular billboard in Boston near the Berkeley college of music which was a &quot;quote&quot; (obviously not a quote because he was dead) from a Parkland school shooting victim saying something like &quot;If my state [Florida] had Massachusetts gun laws I wouldn&#x27;t be dead&quot;, or something like that. Of course this could be true, I find the particular Massachusetts gun laws to be fairly reasonable (background check, waiting period, etc.), but I was always put off by the fact that whatever group put up the billboard falsely quoted a dead teenager to push their agenda.<p>On the other hand I completely understand the stance of 2nd amendment absolutism, where the crux of the argument is that the second amendment directly prevents tyranny by allowing an armed populace to act as a deterrent. I&#x27;ve also seen the historical examples of populations willfully disarming themselves only to fall to outside invasion or internal tyranny (both striking possibilities in America today). I also understand that other countries which have outlawed guns are insufficient comparisons, because if the _entire_ western system was unarmed, then tyranny could prevail, but as long as only the singular America was armed, tyranny could not take over the western world.<p>I can&#x27;t help but to feel that we are collectively missing the forest for the trees here, and school shootings are simply a symptom of greater evils. I also can&#x27;t help but feel that the reaction to these evils (calls for eliminating gun rights altogether) will inevitably lead to more evil.