9.The Vancouver Sun

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Motive unknown in deadly Nabraska mall shooting

By Reuters/Chris VanKat

There seems to be more and more of these mass shooting in the United States. After reading this article I felt sick to my stomach, to think that all these people were shopping for Christmas presents and for no reason were shot dead. It is horrible to even imagine. In Omaha, on December 5th, a nineteen year old man opened fire "with a rifle inside a mall crowded with Christmas shoppers". He was said to be planning on taking own life that day when his suicide note was discovered by his mother, but not only did he take his own life but he took eight other lives right before he took his own and injured many others. I do no understand what would make someone take innocent lives for absolutely no reason. I can't even imagine what must have been going through everyone who was in the stores minds.

"Mass shootings periodically shock the United States, where gun ownership is widespread and the right to bear arms is a hotly contested constitutional issue." This is a continually asked question, should gun ownership be allowed in the United States. My opinion is definitely not. I do not understand why on earth they have not band gun ownership already. You would think they would have banned it a long time ago after the first few mass murders, but they haven't and they keep having these mass shootings. Recently, in mid-April, there was the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history at the Virginia Tech university killing 32 people, and in October 2006, a milk truck driver tied up and 10 Amish schoolgirls in their classroom, killing 5 of them and then himself. Obviously, tragedies like these will inevitably happen once and a while, but the fact that in the U.S. you are allowed to own guns it increases the odds of this happening dramatically.

In Vancouver, we have our own problems dealing with gun violence, and we are seeing more and more of it lately, and we are not legally allowed to own guns. I believe that if the United States were to ban gun ownership, the amount of mass shootings would decrease subsequently. This article was very shocking to read and was a terrible tragedy for the people of Omaha, and the loved ones of the people that were shot. The words that come to mind after reading this article was sick, terrible, horrific tragedy. I really think that they should either ban gun ownership or work towards stricter rules on owning them and maybe there wouldn't be as many shootings in the years to come.