Jon Ogden
2 min readOct 4, 2017

--

I’m sorry to hear that you were involved in this terrifying situation, and I’m glad to hear that you’re safe.

And yet your takeaway that the solution is to “keep an eye open” for people who will slaughter you with guns but not make any effort to keep such people from getting guns seems shortsighted, especially considering that a good guy with a gun couldn’t have done much in this situation.

In reality, almost all Americans support simple gun control measures, as shown here.

88% favor requiring all owners to report lost or stolen firearms.

87% favor preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been reported as dangerous to law enforcement by a mental health provider.

86% favor requiring all sellers to run background checks on anyone who buys a gun.

85% favor preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been convicted of stalking another person.

83% favor preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic assaults.

***

Most Americans even agree about more debated measures (measures that likely would have been effective in reducing the number of deaths in the Las Vegas shooting).

67% favor banning the sale and ownership of assault rifles or similar firearms.

63% favor banning the sale and ownership of all ammunition magazines with a capacity greater than 10 bullets.

***

America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany.

Our country doesn’t have to be this way. We could dramatically reduce gun deaths with a series of research-driven measures that a majority of Americans already support.

So, no, the answer isn’t to “keep an eye open” for maniacs with guns. The answer is to institute actions that have proven effective over and over again in other countries. Anything less than that will put people in the same danger you were in on Sunday—or worse.

--

--

Jon Ogden

Co-founder of UpliftKids.org, a lesson library and curriculum to explore values at home.