SWA #5

Out of all of the essays that were written in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, “Shootings” by Adam Gopnik was the one that really got to me. From his gut wrenching first line to the list shootings that have occurred internationally, Gopnik’s arguments were the ones that I could most closely identify with. I was one of the people calling a friend, trying to find out if they were ok. I was the one terrified of what I might have heard at the other end. The text itself is extremely, and sometimes bluntly honest. He was not afraid to ask the questions that other people had been wanting to ask and to point out the lawmakers repeated mistake of refusing to change something about this county’s gun control policies.
This article was written for anyone who has heard about the Virginia Tech shootings. It is impossible to read the first line and feel no empathy for the victim’s families who were desperately trying to contact their loved ones. The author clearly voices his opinions on gun control and his disappointment in our government’s failure to make more stringent laws about who can own handguns. He also gives examples of what other countries have done in the aftermath of a shooting rampage and how their new measures have prevented other such incidents. I’m sure that Gopnik could have been much harsher in his criticism of our county’s lawmakers, but due to the fact that he was writing for such a widely read paper as The New Yorker, I’m betting that he had to keep his opinions in check.
Obviously, the exigence for this article is the Tech tragedy and all of the other shootings that have occurred and our government’s failure to take action and prevent something like this from happening again. However much I agree with Gopnik, I also have to wonder if he was only reporting one side of the story. He talks about the stricter gun control laws in other countries, but he doesn’t cite any credible sources. On an emotional level, his argument is very persuasive, but in order for it to have any real merit, Gopnik needs to cite credible sources and discuss, in detail, ways that our country can deal with this recent shooting epidemic.