Time in My Life Which Produced a Preponderant Effect on Me - Essay Example

I am talking about the notorious Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting incident. This mass shooting incident churned my insides because for the first time I experienced the meaning of death and the sense of loss executed by it. Before that ominous day of December, I attached no value to the idea of life being the hotheaded nonconformist that I was. I was engaged in an endless search for happiness and sense of purpose. That search took me to different places but I never got an answer. But after 14th December 2012, I realized that sometimes answers to fundamentally important questions of life can be embedded in witnessing the tragic demise of someone you dearly love. Yes, that is true. I realized the importance of my life after experiencing the tragic death of someone I had stayed close to for 5 long years.

            The person who died after the mass shooting occurred at the hospital because of fatal wounds was the little brother of my dearest friend. It seems like I have known this family forever and after I arrived in the US from Asia about 6 years ago, my friend’s family has been my family in its most literal sense. I have known these people forever and I adore them as fiercely as my own family. In my friend’s mother, I see the unbelievable generosity of my mother and in his little brother’s innocent tricks, I used to witness the youthful cheekiness of my own little brother living in Asia. I several times played the role of a big brother for that little man accompanying him to superstores whenever my friend was unavailable or assisting him in other chores. When I first heard the news of the tragic incident, I was sitting hopelessly bored at a café thinking about what interesting task could I engage in to make my life a little worthwhile.

After I was told that my friend’s little brother had also got severely wounded amidst shooting, I acutely remember the whole scene literally darkened for some moments. And after his death, everything happened so quickly, watching my friend and his mother shell-shocked over their irrecoverable loss inculcated overpowering respect for life in my heart in that same instant. I acknowledged the unique power of life and dark loss of death due to that unfortunate social event that depressed the entire society beyond possibility and is still making headlines. That event changed me as a person forever. Before that, I had minimal respect for life and the associations shared by me with significant others struck no chord in my heart for long. Now, I have a thriving passion for life and essentially attach considerable importance to every moment I spend with the people I love because one never knows what tomorrow might bring.

            That time of my life also compelled me to think about certain serious issues of the society in which I had no interest before due to lack of awareness. But, such an intense experience helped me to understand the validity of the anti-gun sentiments in the US. Considering myriad lives and families destroyed by such deadly mass shootings, I believe now that every college administration in every state should go all the way through to prohibit students from bringing guns. My perspective about the whole issue is also the same as that of the majorities according to which guns simply do not belong in a college classroom. Research also stresses that gun control is strongly related to sound societal values (Wilson 9) and the inability of colleges to become a major front in the fight over carrying guns can be interpreted as not adhering to the social code of conduct. Allowing students the right to guns is the sorriest way of helping them defend themselves because this decision is fraught with evil risks.