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BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Like many around the country, Myles Garrett is still struggling with coming to terms with the Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting that left 19 kids and two teachers dead last week.
“I'm still sick,” Garrett said Wednesday.
The slow response by police as well as failure to intervene during the shooting combined with the response by politicians who continue to advocate for more guns in the aftermath has infuriated Garrett.
“It’s still my home and just kind of disappointed as far as the response from the police and how they handled it afterwards,” Garrett said. “The response by [Gov. Greg] Abbott and government officials down there as far as still attending the NRA meeting that they had in Houston, still kind of pressing and advocating for what is really the problem right now.”
Once again, which is becoming commonplace in these mass murder events, an AR-15 was used in this shooting. The AR-15 was used in the Buffalo shooting at a grocery store that left 10 dead.
“I don't see the necessity for an 18 [year old] to have an AR or have access to an AR and they seem to be the main weapon of choice for school shootings and mass shootings and somehow we still continue to find that they get their hands on them so easily and I just think there needs to be more regulations,” Garrett said. “I don't think there needs to be ARs in general, general public. If you want to defend your home, you should have a pistol. I think if you want to go hunting, I think you should have to use a rifle and I think you should have to turn it in when hunting season's over—if you want to go somewhere else you can use it then. I just don't see the reason for that to protect your home. I think that's a little bit overkill.”
Governments around the globe have acted swiftly to enact gun control laws following mass shootings, but in the United States, politicians continue to lack the courage to anything.
According to NPR, the Uvalde shooting was the 27th to take place in a school this year.
Under the guise of protecting kids, the Ohio Senate passed a law Wednesday paving the way for teachers and school personnel in the state be armed. The Ohio House is expected to pass it and Governor Mike DeWine’s office said that he will sign the bill once it reaches his desk.
The Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 that left 20 elementary school children dead along with six others essentially ended the debate on gun control in this country. The message sent from politicians through their inaction amid a steady stream of grieving families since then is this: dead children in classrooms is a small price to pay to protect the second amendment.
For Garrett, that is the real tragedy.
“I think it shown that time and time again, through the years and nothing has changed,” Garrett said. “And too many countries have done it well enough over the years and their response has been much, much greater and more timely than we have and we've seen it time and time again. We say 'remember Sandy Hook,' we say 'remember Uvalde, Texas’ and we'll still remain stubborn in our ways and not do anything about it. And that's the real frustrating thing about it and that's what I talk to my family about. How can we make change happen? How can we progress forward? Because it just seems like we're too ignorant, too arrogant to give up something that seems like our liberty.
“Second amendment seems like you can bear arms, but I don't see the government trying to Big Brother us or march down our throats at the moment and if they did, I don't see us doing anything about it.”
Politicians have rushed in front of cameras and microphones to blame these mass shootings on mental illness and not the weapons used to carry out these heinous crimes.
It is an argument Garrett does not buy.
“Honestly, other countries have mentally ill kids as well, mentally ill adults, and they still don't have this problem,” Garett said. “So it can't be that people are just mentally ill, it has to be the culture that we surround them with, and it has to be how we handle our guns as well.”
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