The first time I remember being informed of a mass shooting occurring was on December 14th 2012, the day that Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I was twelve years old, sitting in my living room, viewing the news coverage with my mom. I remember crying, and her asking me if I was crying out of fear of something similar happening at my school. My response was, “No, this is all just really sad.”
Seven years later, and I still experience the same feelings of sadness when I hear the news of yet another mass shooting occurring. However, reports of mass shootings have become so frequent that it would be impossible for me to remember how I reacted to the news coverage of each one, which is not okay. Sadly, many people are way past the point of caring and become more and more desensitized after the story breaks. After receiving so many breaking news reports that a mass shooter has opened fire in various locations, some people are able to shrug and move on, which is the kind of complacency that NRA members and the lawmakers they support are counting on. Despite their indifference and inaction, the repetitive loss of life at the hands of mass shooters is not something to be normalized. Active shooter drills are not normal. Students being given bulletproof backpacks as they venture off into high school is not normal. Students fearing that their lives will be cut short if someone were to enter their place of learning with a gun (whether it be an elementary, middle, high school or a college campus) is not normal.
The treating of mass shootings as if they are inevitable is where a majority of my frustration comes from. Lawmakers ignore the issue, offering “thoughts and prayers” and visiting locations in the aftermath of shootings, while refusing to actually do something by utilizing their power to create structural change that could prevent so many of these tragedies. In New Zealand, the Prime Minister worked to prohibit access to semi-automatic weapons weeks after a mass shooting took place. In Australia, 35 people were killed at the hands of a semi-automatic weapon, and twelve days after the shooting, Australia’s Prime Minister announced a number of changes to their gun laws: “High-caliber rifles and shotguns were banned, licensing was tightened, a “buy-back” scheme took some 650,000 guns out of circulation and remaining firearms were registered to national standards.” These are just two examples of leaders swiftly taking action to protect its’ citizens from senseless gun violence. America has done nothing like this.
In addition to policy changes, an end to mass shootings cannot be brought without addressing two of the often-ignored factors that contribute to it: misogyny and racism. Many women—myself included—fear being gunned down for rejecting men, and way too many women have been. Black Americans get gunned down by police on a regular basis. The Charleston shooting that took place in 2015, the 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the recent shooting in El Paso were all motivated by White Supremacy. (When you include the intersection of marginalized identities, the issue becomes even more dire). Mental illness, rap music, and video games are just a few things that have been used as scapegoats to avoid addressing these factors and doing the work to dismantle the systems that allow them to persist.
While I can hardly remember a time in my life where reports of mass shootings were not a regular occurrence, my hope is that the next generation won’t. While I’ll continue to advocate for comprehensive gun reform, I’d be lying if I said the feeling of hopelessness didn’t affect me. Countless lives have been lost; countless people have been traumatized—so honestly, what else is there to say that hasn’t already been said? What can be done to undo the years of damage that has been done by the normalization to mass shootings in the U.S.? Who else has to die before change comes?
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