So, after suffering the effects of yet another mass shooting in our country, this time at a Catholic school in Minnesota, where a gunman shot 17 people, mostly children, killing some, I ask again, Why is the United States the only place among our peer nations to allow virtually unrestricted sales and ownership of firearms?In fact, there are morefirearmsin the United States than there are residents, with an estimated 120.5 firearms per 100 people. In a distant second place is the Falkland Islands with 62.1, and in third place is Yemen with 52.8 for every 100 residents. Related Christian nationalists have waged war on public education. Theyre winning. After each incident of individual and mass shootings, we hear the obligatory We send our thoughts and prayers to the survivors and to the loved ones of those who have died coming from politicians and other officials. Well, I hate to break it to you, but thoughts and prayers simply arent cutting it! They arent helping to reduce the chances of another incident tomorrow or next week or next year.Each time I hear of another incident of gun violence in a long and tragic chain, I think back to the very first thing that caught my eye as I entered the grounds of the Ames, Iowa, Republican Party Presidential Straw Poll in the summer of 2011. Three young children, I would guess between the ages of 4 and 7, sporting day-glow orange baseball caps with NRA imprinted atop, and round stickers on their small T-shirts announcing, GUNS SAVE LIVES. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today But, really, do these guns save lives? Do laws expanding gun possession, concealed or not, actually save lives?According to the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun-related deaths have reached epidemic proportions in our country, snuffing out the lives of upwards of 47,000 people and wounding many more in 2023 alone. Based on an analysis of the CDC data, the firearms reform organization,Brady United, reported an average of 117 deaths per day in 2023.Each year, gun violence affects over 100,000 people in some way. Many of the guns used in these killings reach military level weapon power, guns which currently remain legal. Of the increasing number of individual and mass murders in the United States since 1982, most of the shooters obtained their weaponslegally. Demographically, the shooters in all but a very few cases involved males, usually white, with an average age of 35.Should any limits be placed on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reads: A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?We seem somehow only to spout the second clause in that sentence while forgetting the first, especially the term well-regulated!I propose that we reevaluate the rights obsession with the so-called freedom to bear arms because it isnotonly criminals who kill people as Second Amendment advocates claim. Therefore,We must ban and criminalize the possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons!We must close loopholes, such as buying a weapon at a gun show!We must pass Red Flag laws in every state and, more importantly, on the federal level!We must ban the purchase of firearms and ammunition on the internet because some people are still doing this legally!We must increase the waiting period and make background checks more rigorous and effective!We must raise the age for gun ownership!We must pass laws to ensure safe gun storage requirements!We must pass stronger laws to address gun trafficking!We must limit the number of firearms any individual can own!We must limit the number of bullets any firearm clip can hold!We must ban and criminalize the purchase and possession of armor-piercing bullets, and also hollow-tip bullets!We must address gun violence as a public health issue!We must address the serious mental health concerns of all people with sufficient resources and treatment!We must provide active shooter training in all businesses, schools, and other social institutions!We must make the abolition of gun silencers permanent!We must eliminate the manufacture and sales of all rapid-fire devices! We must repeal shoot first or stand your ground laws!We must close the Charleston loophole in which, under federal law, a gun purchase can proceed by default after a three-day background check period, even if that check has not been completed!We must mandate that local law enforcement be alerted after any loss or theft of a firearm!We must criminalize the production of 3-D manufactured firearms of all varieties!We must repeal the immunity granted to firearms manufacturers!We must mandate the compensation of innocent victims of gun violence!We must alert local law enforcement whenever any person fails a background check! We must rethink the logic of permitting concealed weapons and open carry, especially in places like houses of worship, colleges, bars, restaurants, and political rallies!We must interface all databases monitoring firearm ownership to assess the firearm-owning population more accurately and effectively!To be perfectly honest, however, I want the Second Amendment repealed! It is an Amendment for goodness sake. It is not some sort of divinely-inspired mandate from a superior being well beyond our comprehension. It was created by our intelligent but flawed founding fathers, who probably did not want totally unlimited and unrestricted rights to bear arms. While wise men crafted what many consider today to be a brilliant and enduring blueprint for a new nation, they were products of their times with their individual human shortcomings and biases.Just coming off a war of independence against one of the worlds great colonial powers, it was reasonable to expect leaders to ensure that people had the capability to defend themselves against any potentially tyrannical government. In this regard, they established the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, granting people the right to bear arms.Since then, firearms and the culture supporting them have been encoded into the very DNA of U.S.-American identity and what it means to be an American. But what may have been reasonable in the 18thcentury, without substantial reform, ranks as unreasonable today. Even if they did advocate for unrestricted firearms ownership, these are the same men who enslaved other human beings, committed genocide against and expelled native peoples, withheld enfranchisement from women, engaged in and killed one another in duels, and so on.Actually, Im really surprised that the gun-toting political right hasnt advocated for the return of lethal dueling matches. Maybe thats next on their agenda. (Go see the Broadway show Hamilton to see how that turned out!)But what was the actual, often hidden or forgotten reason for the founders to include the Second Amendment as they conceived it in the Bill of Rights? In her book,The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, author Carol Anderson discovered the overarching racial discrepancies in the handling of gun ownership in the U.S. dating to the founding of the country and to the Second Amendment.The language of the amendment, Anderson argues, was shaped to ensure that owners of those they enslaved would be able rapidly to repel acts of resistance and rebellious uprisings. She says the right to bear arms, presumably guaranteed to all citizens but not to enslaved Africans, has been repeatedly denied to Black people.As we all know, in the current political climate, the chances for comprehensive common-sense gun reform measures in the United States are only a pipe dream as long as the right controls Congress and state legislatures. If the lobbyists for firearms manufacturers had not bought and paid for our legislators and members of the Executive branch, we would have seen effective laws passed years ago, resulting in countless lives saved.Nevertheless, this utter insanity in our system of firearms laws must end. Enough is enough is enough is enough already! Actually, it is far past that time.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.