The New Year had barely begun when the city of Tucson, AZ was struck by tragedy. Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords appeared at a local Safeway grocery store for “Congress on your Corner”— a way for citizens to casually gather and discuss local issues that needed national attention.
But ten minutes into the meeting, a man who has since come to be identified as Jared Lee Loughner stormed through the crowd, letting loose 20 rounds, injuring thirteen people and killing six.
I sat in my mother’s living room in Phoenix, horror-struck as I saw photographs of the fallen flash across the TV screen—a well-known federal judge and a 9 year-old girl among them.
The feeling that sank through my stomach felt like a version of the feeling I awoke to on 9/11 when my radio alarm rang with chaos instead of music.
It was the cold realization of innocent life taken too soon.
I thought of my friends and family who attend the University of Arizona in Tucson just two hours away and began to pray that they hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that thought was quickly overshadowed as my attention turned back to the known victims, those for whom prayers came too late.
Someone lost a father.
Someone lost a fiancé.
Someone lost a daughter.
What I thought was a particularly terrible local story quickly turned national, as reports moved from the local news stations to CNN and President Obama quickly arrived in Tucson to speak at the memorial.
But just hours after the incident, amongst the vigils and the mourners, were those looking for someone or something to blame.
As with most tragedies, this is usually the gut reaction.
Whose fault is it? After 9/11, it was airport security.
Surely, we all remember the year that followed when we had to arrive at the airport three extra hours in advance.
In this case, it’s gun control.
Following the shooting, New York representative Peter King was reportedly planning to introduce a legislation that would make carrying a firearm within 1,000 ft. of a government official illegal.
I’m sure many will agree that changes need to be made, or at least considered. You’ll rarely come across a state with gun laws as lax as those in Arizona.
A permit isn’t even needed to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona if you’re over the age of 21. But using a fresh tragedy for a political agenda is hardly a noble route towards bringing about change.
And plastering the faces of the fallen alongside calls for gun control is an insult to their memory and the lives they led before their untimely deaths.
I grew up in Arizona and, like many there, I grew up around guns. If and when I live alone, I will surely own a firearm with the intent of protecting myself if needed.
Do I think it should be easy for me to get one? Certainly not. Nevertheless, a gun is an invention that cannot be undone. If an extreme were ever reached and all firearms were outlawed, the only ones with them would be criminals.
And if a criminal breaks into my home and I, as a law-abiding citizen, own nothing but a steak knife to defend myself against their pistol, the end result will surely not be in my favor.
But even as a supporter of the Second Amendment, I’ll agree that there is something wrong with the system that allowed a man like Loughner (who is widely agreed to be “mentally unsound”) to purchase a weapon.
I’ll also admit that this incident caused me to think more deeply about this issue than I had in a long time.
But what I fear most is that the lives and heroism of the people lost and injured will or have been made into a political advertisement.
Obama worded it well at the memorial in Tucson: “It’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”
Hopefully this time of heartache in our country will be remembered as a time that brought us together and not as a time that further divided us.
Hannah Webster can be reached at hannahkarine31@gmail.com.