Opinion: Gun control works. I know, because my school had the shooter that wasn’t.

Once again, American parents are mourning the children they sent to school who won’t be coming home because a teenager had easy access to a gun. This time it’s Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and at least 19 children are dead, along with 2 staff members.

There have already been 27 school shootings in America this year, 83 people getting killed or injured. And still it seems significant gun control is a fever dream. I really have to ask why, or more accurately, how? How do people still really and truly believe strict gun laws aren’t the solution? How do they really still push the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” narrative - as if the guns aren’t doing quite a lot of the heavy lifting here?

I live in the UK, and in the UK access by the general public to firearms is subject to some of the strictest control measures in the world. Handguns are completely prohibited for the general public, we cannot carry them. Members of the public may own sporting rifles and shotguns, subject to being granted a license. These are all prohibited for public ownership in the UK.

Fully automatic or burst-fire weapons, which may include some air guns.

  • Semi-automatic or pump-action rifles that fire centre-fire ammunition

  • Manually Actuated Release System Rifles and Lever Release Rifles

  • Cartridge-ammunition handguns, regardless of calibre

  • Firearms disguised as another item (e.g. walking sticks, mobile telephones, etc.)

  • Rockets and mortars.

  • Air guns chambered for self-contained gas cartridges.

We’ve had these restrictions in place since the horrific Dunblane School Massacre of 1996. Since then, 0 mass shooting events here involving a handgun. In the 26 years since these restrictions, there have been a grand total of 2 mass shootings, and both involved the firearms people can own with a license. Which suggests it is the ability to access a gun that leads to gun death, and the prohibition of firearms stops mass casualty incidents involving them. But if these figures aren’t enough, let me tell you about a boy I went to school with.

6 years ago, a boy I went to school with was arrested and sentenced under the mental health act because he had been threatening to kill school children at our old school, and another in the same village. He was 19 at the time, and the children he was threatening were as young as 5 and 6. When he was arrested, his search history was essentially a shrine to notorious school shooters. He had told mental health professionals his goal was to be just like the Columbine shooters, and he had been extensively researching where and how to buy a gun.

He was absolutely obsessed with serial killers, and was desperate to become one. However like I mentioned above, after what happened in Dunblane where 16 children and 1 teacher were killed, our gun laws in the UK were changed for the better. It meant that Zach couldn’t find a gun with ease, he couldn’t buy a gun with ease, he couldn’t go into his parents safe and take a gun out with ease. Guns simply are not readily available in this country.

Because of that, Zachary Dunning is not the name of a mass murderer who killed children. The worst he managed to do was give a few kids a fright, but they all went home to their loved ones. Alive. The shooter in Uvalde was 18. And had he been born here, he’d have likely - almost certainly - been another Zachary Dunning.

We had one school shooting and as a result, no child here has to fear their lives when they go to school each morning. Shooter drills and the trauma they inflict are not a normal part of children’s lives. Our schools are not battlefields. Our schools where futures are built, not shot down in a blaze of bullets.

What is it going to take to wake the gun fanatics up? What is it going to take for Americans to wake up and see that they are the only developed nation that has this problem. And last I checked, we all have people in our nations. So "guns don’t kill people, people do" really isn’t holding up. What will it take for lives to be protected, and for humans to hold more rights than metal? What will it take for change, because thoughts and prayers don’t save lives.

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Resource: Understanding Northern Ireland, The Troubles, and the Brexit NI Protocol.