“The shooting deaths of three children and three adults inside a Nashville school has put further pressure on Congress to look at imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons,” Michael J. Klein writes. “Such a prohibition would be designed cover the types of guns that the suspect legally purchased and used during the March 27, 2023, attack.”
“The deadly shooting of at least 19 children and two adults in Texas on May 24, 2022, is the latest in an ever-growing list of national tragedies, leaving families and friends of the victims gripped with grief, anguish and despair,” Dr. Arash Javanbakht writes. “I am a trauma and anxiety researcher and clinician, and I know that the effects of such violence reach millions. While the immediate survivors are most affected, the rest of society suffers, too.”
After any mass shooting, Americans hear politicians make the ritualistic call for “thoughts and prayers.” Thoughts and prayers are not enough. A social-contextual analysis would examine how shooters’ shared characteristics interact with their surroundings to make them capable of the unimaginable acts they committed.
As originally designed, an assault rifle is built for one purpose: to be used by the military to maim and kill human beings as quickly as possible. It is not a sporting or hunting rifle. The design of the AR-15 bullet is too light for deer, too heavy for squirrels, but just right for humans. Why then does a civilian need such a rifle?
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