Gun Control: An Unresolved Issue

Gun+Control%3A+An+Unresolved+Issue

Chris Appello, Staff Writer '17

Two weeks ago, on an eerie Halloween night, Chicago resident Reginald Gildersleeve attempted a robbery on a small convenience store with a non-lethal paintball gun. The whimsical evening activities happening in the store’s surrounding blocks came to an abrupt halt.  Gildersleeve was put down by an armed bystander legally carrying a weapon with a concealed carry permit and died at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds. He had been involved in several other robberies and thefts that night.

 Igbinosa Oronsaye, a local bystander, spoke to the press on the matter: “Some people don’t actually know how to use guns. They go to firing ranges, but it’s not the same as a bullet going into someone’s body, it’s not the same as a bullet going into flesh . . . You just took a brother, you just took a father from a lot of people. Somebody’s got to answer for that.” Oronsaye’s statement, delivered on the night of yet another shooting in Chicago, contains an under-discussed perspective in the country’s ongoing gun control debate.

The simple legal ownership of a gun does not automatically grant the owner the wisdom needed to use such a powerful tool responsibly. Taking a human life should be avoided at all costs, until that life puts others at risk. Even if the use of a gun is in self-defense, a life can still possibly be stripped from those who love and care for it. That father, son, uncle, etc. can cease to physically exist. Therefore, gun control necessitates that one possesses the necessary cognitive prowess to informatively and empathetically craft a well-formed decision of instituting gun use in a given situation. Without taking time to process the situation at hand, it is strongly suggested that one not own a gun to avoid future misunderstandings. How many more killing must occur in Chicago and around the country before Americans wake up to this fact?