As seen on Christian Post
This week scores of people will experience again the grief of missing loved ones, cut down by a deranged young man with multiple deadly weapons, in the high school he shared with his victims. The Parkland, Florida mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which killed 17, injured 17, joins the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which wiped out a classroom of precious children, as two of the most horrific moments in American history. The irony that the Parkland slaughter was on Valentine’s Day only increases the suffering. While many will celebrate having and enjoying their loved ones in their lives—the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors will only feel afresh the terrible vacuum in their hearts.
All these years after Sandy Hook—and a full year after Marjory Stoneman—Congress has finally responded with a first step toward curbing the use of firearms to kill, terrorize, and stain the social fabric with blood, sadness and fear. This new bill, H.R. 8, is a proposed federal law requiring universal background checks before the purchase of any deadly firearm. This action paves the way for similar bills enacting a “red flag” law, so that anyone can point to a disturbed person before he/she buys or uses a gun to hurt others.