Column: Las Vegas Shooting Serves as a Call to Action

The+Las+Vegas+Strip+Monday+night%2C+just+one+day+following+the+fatal+shooting.+The+city+was+once+a+place+where+people+would+go+to+escape+from+their+hectic+realities.

Photo credit: Robert Macabagdal

The Las Vegas Strip Monday night, just one day following the fatal shooting. The city was once a place where people would go to escape from their hectic realities.

“It was an act of pure evil,” President Donald Trump said about Sunday’s shooting.

There are no words to accurately describe what happened on Oct. 1, at 10:05 p.m. It’s said to be the worst massacre in “modern U.S. history;” I cry every time I see a video of it or read an article about it.

Stephen Paddock, the shooter, legally brought 23 guns inside his hotel room when he opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival59 people are known to be dead, and 516 are wounded. Not only were adults harmed, but children and teenagers, too.

My friends were at the concert. One of them was shot, and three are currently in the hospital. My friends that love puppies and life are fighting everyday now to hold onto the lives they love — lives that Stephen Paddock tried to take from them. But those lives will continue to be lived.

Innocent teenagers who went to that concert because they love the music, are now in the hospital on breathing machines, fighting to stay alive. Nobody should ever have to fight for their life because they decided to go to a concert. Safe places where people gather to listen to music are being wrecked with unbelievable havoc. From Christina Grimmie’s concert where she was shot dead to Ariana Grande’s concert where 22 died at the hands of a suicide bomber, safe places are now the setting for deadly attacks.

The events that occurred in Las Vegas are enough for parents to fear sending their child to a festival or a concert. The fear that mass shootings are causing at peaceful events should not exist. This massacre should not be normal. No parent should be afraid that their child will be the victim of a mass shooting, and no child should question whether or not they should go to a concert because they fear not coming home.

Photo by Robert Macabagdal
Street view of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, where the Stephen Paddock fired from. His motive is still unknown.

But this article isn’t written to incite fear, I wrote it to spread awareness of problems affecting the entire world. I bet that most people didn’t know about the Reina nightclub shooting in Istanbul on Jan. 1 that killed 39 or the 182 killed Bali on October 13, 2002 at 11:53 PM. This is not to say that we must feel guilty for any lack of knowledge we have concerning other countries; however, it is to further express that it is our duty to know more than just what is happening in the world.

Tragedies, despite being unbelievably devastating events, should be a sign that it is time for the world to wake up. We have a problem in this country. That problem is that the Second Amendment, which protects our rights to bear arms, does not take into consideration its grave consequences. As a community, we must take these events into consideration when we think about the right to bear arms.

In order to make a difference, we must incite change within our government. Call our senators, Dianne Feinstein at (202)224 -3841 and Kamala Harris at (202)224-3553 and demand that gun control laws be stricter. We are all capable of being agents of change in society.