by Robert Stadnik

Created on: May 31, 2009   Last Updated: June 03, 2009

The Virginia Tech shooting, like all tragedies before it, temporarily reignited the debate on gun control in America. Although the shooting, like those before, was a senseless tragedy, it cannot be used as an excuse to ban firearms in this country. A gun in and of itself is harmless, it is the individual using it who holds the power.

I don't like guns. I wish the founding fathers never put the right to bear arms in the Constitution and no one could own a weapon. But they did and I have to respect the Constitution. So the question is how to minimize these tragedies from occurring. How do we dissuade those individuals from acting out such plans.

One method is a revamping of our current criminal system. Somehow along the way we became confused between rehabilitating criminals and punishing them. How many times do we see on the news about a ex-convict who killed someone on parole and to no surprise has a long history of crimes on his record. Rehabilitation didn't work as he repeatedly committed crimes and punishment didn't work as going back to prison didn't faze him. Prisons have become a protective home for the convicted. They receive three meals a day, receive education, have television privileges, and other perks. I'm not meaning to glorify prisons as a Club Med, but for many of these convicts they have better amenities in prison than outside of it.

The death penalty itself is useless. Those who are sentenced to death can look forward to twenty years or more of appeals before the sentence can be ever carried out. In the meantime they have a roof over their had and a warm place to sleep each night.

Whenever Mexican prisons are brought up, people shiver in fear. But when American prisons are brought up, people just shrug their shoulders. People who commit crimes in our country do not seem to have a reasonable fear of the prison system to dissuade them for carrying out their acts of violence. If we had a prison system that people were fearful of, maybe we wouldn't have the violence in our country we have now.

The case of Virginia Tech may never have been avoided. Individuals looking to die and take as many people with them have no fear of anything. There will always be those few individuals, despite whatever system is in place, who will use guns as a means of senseless violence against others. But those few individuals cannot be used a justification to throw out a fundamental right of the Constitution. Regulation and a forceful punishment system is what needs to be utilized to ensure such events occur infrequently.

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