By SILAS CLARK

I understand that some of my Republican friends cannot appreciate what first world gun legislation means, but I will tell the tale anyways.

Modern, high capacity firearms are a plague in a civil, safe society. Guns are only as safe as the person who can pass a self-submitted, automated background check.

My tale is that of a large number of concert goers in a large metropolitan area of southern Nevada (Las Vegas). Numerous families had gathered for a night of festivities and fun at a country music festival. These people came from all walks of life, here to let loose and have a good time listening to good music. 

He was a real estate investor, property manager, and amateur pilot from Iowa. He went to college and graduated with a degree in Business Administration. He lived in Arizona where from 2016-2017, he legally purchased 33 firearms, multiple of them semi-automatic assault style weapons (AR-15s).

One night, when people where relaxing and having a good time at the concert below his hotel room on the 32 floor, he shot out his window and opened fire on the crowd of 22,000 people. Despite police being on scene, and multiple people carrying concealed handguns, Stephan Paddack killed 58 people and injured 851 others within the span of 10 minutes, before killing himself. 

This was in 2017, while our republican senators eagerly took the NRA’s funds in exchange for human life.

I doubt that the families of the fatalities got much sleep that night, and neither did I. I was kept awake at the prospect that anyone who had not committed an offense that landed them on the NICS, can legally buy an assault style rifle with high capacity magazines.

The reader may be thinking, “How could this happen when we have so many staunch believers in a literal interpretation of the 2nd amendment on scene to fire back and stop the “Bad Guy With A Gun™”? Bad guys do still exist, but if we limit the access to weapons whose sole purpose is to kill people as efficiently as possible, perhaps instead of 58 people dead, it is 10, or 5, or zero.

In the words of The Onion: “‘No Way to Prevent This’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”