Our nation has faced many grim events in the past year. The unfortunate truth is that many of those situations have involved a shooter taking the lives of the innocent. In light of recent events and other events that still afflict our nation, what does the student body think about gun control? Now, the students of Xavier answer that question.

Junior Ben Pitruzzello says, “Quite honestly, everyone should be able to own any type of gun. I believe that a private citizen should be able to own an artillery piece.” Ben added onto his statement saying, “I am in full disagreement with any attempt to limit the sale of arms and weapons in the country, the people should never be disarmed lest the government or corporate interests become dangerous and they begin to threaten the working class. If people want to own a tank, who am I to tell them no? Taking away guns frequently creates more problems than it solves, and it sets a dangerous precedent about how the government can meddle in personal affairs and private matters.”

Sophomore Zach Bulkovitch started his statement saying, “Currently, I do not think that gun control is very effective. In my opinion there is no need for anyone to carry/own a high-powered rifle and/or side arm. No one is going to be laying siege to your home and in situations of home invasion a small hunting hatchet has proven to be more effective in most scenarios. Police even have what I believe is called a ’10-feet’ rule where 10 feet is the distance it typically takes for someone with a knife to rush you; but now the setting is home corridors.” Zach proceeded saying, “If you are a gun enthusiast, ranges are open as well as hunting grounds. I can kind of understand the ‘Stand Your Ground Law’ some states have, but I see the need to have that law in correlation with gun control. If there was tighter control, there wouldn’t be as many incidents that would incite governments to create such a law.” Zach finished by saying, “Finally, there are some people who claim that it is their constitutional right to own a gun, big or small. The whole premise behind the Second Amendment was to prevent British soldiers from quartering themselves in colonists’ homes. That will never happen today. As of now, the United States has countless military bases not only in the country but around the world as well. The U.S. army only occupies about a third of the total combined capacity of these bases.”

“Guns are fine,” says Junior Nathaniel Correia. “Guns keep the people safe.”

“I like guns for self defense,” says Junior Isaac Wolfgang.

Freshman Nathaniel Kerr says, “I believe that people should not have military grade weapons, armor piercing bullets, and extended mags. I believe that you should be able to carry a weapon for self-defense in some scenarios and you should be able to own a weapon for hunting.” Nathaniel continued saying, “I believe that carrying guns in public situations can tend to lead to problems more than they can fix problems. Even though there have been cases where guns have saved situations, it seem that if no one has guns, it could possibly prevent situations rather than save them.”

“While an all-out ban would be the dream solution, it’s not realistic since that would leave everyone vulnerable to illegal guns,” says sophomore Paul Thiel. “My ideal solution would be a heavy restriction on what type of guns can be owned. For example, I don’t think there is a single reason for people to own a military rifle. ‘Home defense’ is not a good reason, unless you plan on defending your home from 20+ people.” Paul continued, “I think the only kind of guns people should be allowed to own are semi-automatic handguns. A handgun can still work as a defense weapon, and it can be hard to use to commit large-scale shootings with.” Paul ended by saying, “While I recognize that having a gun can save lives, I also believe guns are weapons. They should still be treated as dangerous objects.”

Junior Matthew Tracy says, “I think that incredibly thorough background checks are needed and excessive types of guns, such as assault rifles, should be either more tightly barred or completely restricted.”

Junior Alex Sauer says, “In a perfect world, I would hope for gun ownership to be restricted to secure shooting ranges so that people could still enjoy sporting, but while having less access to their guns. Unfortunately in the time that we live, and looking back primarily on the events that occurred at the Capitol, I would say that outlawing guns or restricting them further is too great a risk. For this reason, my current stance on gun control is somewhere between neutral and pro-gun.”

Sophomore Matthew Ewing says, “Guns technically don’t kill people, it’s the people behind the guns that do it.”

“I don’t think citizens should have guns,” says Junior Jamie Ayepah.

“I don’t personally like most takes on gun control, although I get it’s not an easy thing to take a specific approach to,” says sophomore Kyle Quartuccio. “Personally though, I would like to see a healthier culture around firearms in general, both including those who do use them and those who don’t. I think generally everyone should be knowledgeable about guns and have equal access to them. I think crime would go down if both the suspected causes (poverty, mental health, etc.) and the stigma around guns went away. I don’t think it’s fair to let the sick and twisted minority of people take away the privileges of millions of law-abiding citizens; I don’t see how it’s fair to surrender something that has been constitutional since the very beginning of the country either.”

Junior Jake Oliva simply states, “guns are kind of cool.”

Junior Matt Fuffo answered the question saying, “I guess there should be some control on it, but everyone does have the right to have a weapon because of the Constitution. I think it’s a bit excessive to have anyone be able to get an automatic rifle, or something with that much power.”

There are many differing opinions in the school, but most of the opinions agree that citizens should have the right to be armed to defend themselves. There were a small number of opinions saying that gun control should not exist, or guns should not be wielded by the public, but these opinions were not as prominent. While guns have been used to take lives, they have also been used to save lives, which is an idea that the students seem to share.