Twenty-four seconds. According to the Mayor of Dayton, Ohio, that is how long it took to kill nine people and injure fourteen people early Sunday morning, August 4, 2019. Just twenty-four seconds, less than half a minute. Thirteen hours earlier, on Saturday morning, August 3, 2019, in El Paso, Texas, a gunman killed twenty people and injured twenty-six people before police arrived six minutes after the shooting started. In six minutes (El Paso) and twenty-four seconds (Dayton) twenty-nine people died and fifty-three people were injured. On Monday, the death toll from the El Paso shooting increased to twenty-two when two of the wounded died at the hospital. Just one week earlier, three people were killed and thirteen people were injured early Sunday evening, July 28, 2019, in Gilroy, California.
The El Paso shooter was taken alive. The Dayton shooter was killed. The Gilroy shooter killed himself. The El Paso shooter posted what many are referring to as a manifesto to explain his reasons for his actions before he started shooting. The Dayton shooter and the Gilroy shooter did post anything before they started shooting. One was driven by hate and bigotry. No one knows for certain what drove the other two. What all three have in common is that they legally obtained the guns and ammunition they used. This will be one of the arguments used to oppose stronger gun regulations. Another argument will be the Second Amendment guarantee that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." However, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, in delivering the majority opinion in DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL. v. HELLER, stated that
"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed
weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those 'in common use at the time' finds support in the historical tradition
of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
Pp. 54–56."
Assault weapons, while "in common use," now, are clearly "dangerous." A weapon that can be modified, as the Dayton shooter's was, to kill nine people and injure twenty-seven people in twenty-four seconds cannot possibly be considered a gun for "common use." Assault weapons are designed for one purpose and that purpose is to kill and injure as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. In Dayton, Ohio, that amount of time was twenty-four seconds. Why does any civilian need a weapon which can kill nine people and injure twenty-seven people in twenty-four seconds? That is not a weapon for personal protection or hunting. That is a weapon for killing people.
Those against gun control are quick to blame mental health issues as the reason for mass shootings. But as many have pointed out, the United States is not the only country with people who have mental health issues. Nor, for that matter, is the United States the only country with people exposed to violent video games and movies. Other countries do not have the number of mass shootings that the United States does. The problem is easy access to assault weapons, ammunition and modifications to make those weapons even more deadly. The Dayton shooter modified his weapon so that he could shoot one hundred rounds of ammunition without reloading. He was not in a combat situation. He was not under attack. He was in Dayton, Ohio.
