Feature Photo By: Thomas Russell – An unloaded 12 gauge shotgun ready for cleaning.
This year, over a dozen new gun laws have been approved in several states; also, a new gun bill has been a priority in the house of representatives. This new bill will make obtaining a gun more difficult for everyone, including: gun shows and online gun sales. After taking control of the house, the Democrats are going to pass the bill easily; however, they will have a tough time passing the bill in the Senate, which is mostly republicans.
Students at RHS have many varying opinions on the new bill and on gun control in general. Many people here at Rangeview see this topic as a serious one, because of the various beliefs we have here.
Junior Raymond Cortez said: “ You shouldn’t be able to have a gun if you have any bad intentions with it; You shouldn’t have a gun if you have any mental illnesses so you can’t harm yourself or others.”
Gun control seems to be a big issue with students from RHS because it is so commonplace in conversations and even in classes such as civics, but not all students believe the same thing.
Junior Deazel Heartness believes that “stricter gun control laws help protect people whose brain is still developing because they are more prone to acting on emotion.” The younger generation seems to be more pro-gun control and BBC seems to agree that younger people want more gun control.
Here at RHS, this seems to be split while this generation seems to be leaning to side with students like Heartness who think: “ We should punish adults who have their weapons used by their child in a crime or mass shooting.”
If students at Rangeview worked together then we could fix our communities many problems regarding guns; in Colorado, over the last few years, have had a rise in assaults with guns. For instance, a few days ago a Hinkley high schools’ assistant principal was shot over a parking dispute with his neighbor after they wanted to “box it out.”
There are some students such as Alex Amaya and Hunter Davis who think that “after this new gun bill you won’t be able to do much more without violating the second amendment because people are relentless and will get firearms anyway.” Rangeview students have varying beliefs on guns.
Even Rangeview staff have strong beliefs on the issue of guns and gun control. English teacher Jon Sobolewski said, “I don’t honestly. (Talking about the new gun control bill) I really think that it’s something that we constantly need to be working on as our world changes.”
The last significant change to our gun laws was in 2008 repealing a 32-year-old gun law on the trigger lock requirement in Washington D.C. A new bill in the works will require all people to get a background check when purchasing or transferring the ownership of a gun. Sobolewski said: “ I think it would help but logistically that really doesn’t work.”
At Rangeview the students and staff have differing opinions regarding gun control, but students and staff alike both want to be safe in school and out.
