Word of Beak: Gun control, Sandy Hook shooting controversy concerning

Congratulations to Joe Amaro and Christine van Tol for being voted Willows High School Winter Homecoming king and queen — and well done to all classes for your hard work.

With another homecoming come and gone, students can once again focus on other topics they feel are important. One of the most popular topics I have heard is the current issue of the gun ban.

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was covered coast to coast and caused controversy over the same distance.

Parents and children who called for a ban on guns or stricter gun laws claim that it will prevent acts like this in the future. Would stricter gun laws have truly prevented an act of this nature?

The gun that is currently "on the chopping block" to be made illegal as a result of the shooting was not even used at the school.

The assault rifle was not shot at the elementary school, yet the government is still intending to pass laws against this weapon.

The basic principle is that the government wants to make guns illegal because a few law-abiding citizens would feel safer.

However, criminals, who by definition do not abide by the law, will not suddenly give up their weapons simply because the government tells them to. The criminals will still have very easy access to weapons of all kinds through the black market. We cannot pretend as if the black market does not exist and that criminals will be unable to acquire illegal firearms.

Here is a hypothetical situation: More than assault rifles are made illegal; all guns are made illegal to own with any ammunition. Two armed robbers barge into a busy bank demanding that if anyone alerts the police, they will kill everyone in the building.

They know that one of the tellers has already hit the silent alarm and shoot all but one. The security guard working with them shoots the one that is standing on the opposite side of the building, locks the doors, and watches all of the people to ensure that no one tries anything. All of the patrons are law-abiding citizens who do not own guns. The men take all the money that is in the registers and leave through a back exit and disappear.

Here is the same situation with the only difference being much looser gun laws: Two armed robber barge into a busy bank and are greeted by 35-40 percent of the citizens in the bank pointing guns in their direction and every teller has sights set on the robbers. Those who do not have a gun fall to the ground to avoid any stray fire.

Someone sees movement out of their peripheral vision and directs their attention to the dirty security guard and each teller has activated their silent alarm.

In the first situation, the people who had no guns called people who had guns to protect them. Multiple people were killed and the perpetrators escaped. In the second situation, the people were able to protect themselves and the perpetrators were caught.

If the government can make a gun illegal that was not used in a terrible occurrence it is associated with, is it not possible that they could make any gun illegal with a little persuasion?