Tragic events unfolded in Las Vegas this weekend as a shooter killed 59 and injured 500+ people on Sunday night at a musical festival. That is the biggest mass shooting in modern U.S history.

Ei Konno is a visiting educator to Kennedy from Yamanashi, Japan. She is an English teacher and here in Iowa to learn how to teach foreign language, working with teacher Dan Carolin’s foreign language classes and, from time to time, visiting with students and teachers in other classrooms.

She told Torch students today that she was surprised at the weekend mass shooting and violence, as “[we are] not allowed to have guns at all. Back at home we do not have guns because we don’t need them.”

She remembers the last mass tragedy in Japan as happening about 20 years ago when terrorists used harmful chemicals on a subway which killed many citizens.

“Everyone remembers and cannot forget that because it was so terrible,” Konno said, but guns aren’t really a worry in her country. “We don’t have fear of going anywhere, because we don’t have guns.”

“Ok the problem with that question is there’s not a clear answer,” Officer Charity Hansel said when asked about her thoughts on gun control. The United States has had guns since the beginning unlike other countries like Japan. “Say we’re going to get rid of five clips that hold so many rounds or are going to get rid of certain firearms who’s weapons do you think you’re going to get?…the one in yesterday’s shooting looks like it was legally obtained, but the point is that you’re never going to get rid of the illegal guns at this point.”  

According to Gun Violence Archive the total number of incidents involving a gun is 46,805 just this year alone with that being the Unites States is the leading country where civilians own guns.