Tragedies such as that of Newtown, Aurora and Virginia tech should never have been able to come about. The US has lost control of gun sales, and nowadays a gun can be available to almost anyone who needs one. I think that the country has become far to relaxed about gun control, and it has taken several tragedies for them to have to face this problem. It should never have taken the loss of innocent lives to bring about change.
Many people address the issue of Newtown as a reason why the rules need to change, to me it is simply the tipping point. The authorities power over arms has been diminishing for years. For his whole term Obama never addressed the problem, and only is now because he has been left with no option. Unfortunately there is no quick-fix option, and many naive members of the public appear to simply look at the situation and declare that arms should just be taken away. This is simply not possible. The logistics would not work, due to the number of guns already in the streets, and the ease to illegally purchase one. Looking past all the issues this would pose, there is one greater overshadowing problem; the constitution would not allow the illegalisation of weapons. Being English studying in the US, I do not have enough of a background knowledge on these issues to come up with a solution. I can however use my own knowledge to suggest a change. One of the most obvious ones to me would be the banning of assault weapons. Since all weapons cannot be banned, I think that it is essential that some way is found to at least control the weapons available to the public.
The obvious need to change the laws was the first thing that jumped out at me after Newtown, but many things became apparent following this. For weeks it dominated the headlines and new stories. I cannot speak for American news, but in the UK the stories centered around gun laws and the story of the shooter himself. For me one issue became prevalent. In all the news I watched, I can count on one hand the number of times i saw the stories and names of the victims. Giving the shooter the media attention that is so badly craved by many psychopaths. Evidently people need to hear why he took such horrific actions, and they need to debate on the obvious gun law issues, but I found it heartbreaking to not hear or know the names of the victims. I think that this is something we need to become aware of; we cannot lose sight of the real tragedy here, and that is not the lack of control, it is simply the lives lost at the hands of a gun.