I Can Hardly Remember A Time When Reports of Mass Shootings Weren’t a Regular Occurrence

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedGen Z

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? 

Similar Read: Bulletproof Backpacks, a 2019 Back-to-School Essential?

A Notification of Death

by with 2 Comments CultureFeatured

[This is part one of a three-part series on American gun violence.]

The screen on my phone illuminates with a notification. My eyes peer over to read the information and then I return to whatever activity I was performing. As I write this piece, I received notifications from The New York Times and ESPN. While this may seem to be mundane behavior in the 21st century; it’s not. It’s not mundane because often the words in the notifications inform me of death and my reaction to that information over time alarms me. Whether it’s a headline of another LeBron James stat line or a notification that seventeen have been gunned down in yet another mass shooting, I typically peer away and go about my business – I’m desensitized and that’s a major problem.

April 1999 was the spring before I was to enter high school and I remember, quite vividly, learning about the Columbine High School shooting from the evening news that night. I wasn’t allowed to have a cell phone then but I knew from the murmurings of the adults in the street on my way home that something bad had happened. I was in the eighth grade and I quietly wondered if I would have to fear for my safety in high school. However, at the time, it seemed like such a one-off incident and growing up in Brooklyn – Colorado could have been on Pluto for all I knew. So the initial fear subsided and I recall the outrage from adults which lead to discussions around the shooters music of choice, bullying, the shooters parental upbringing, but never a referendum on guns. 15 dead in an American High School.

It was my first day of work as a full-time working professional, ever, on April 16, 2007. I was living at home at the time and was so excited to share with my family all of the details of my first day of work at American Express. I wasn’t given a laptop that day so I wasn’t as connected to what was happening in the world for most of the day. However, I do remember people around the office murmuring about a school shooting at Virginia Tech. Focused on making a good first impression, the school shooting didn’t register until I retired to my room later that evening where I learned of the scale of what had taken place. Gun control again lead the national debate for a time but then faded into the background. 33 dead in an American University.

I was living in Sydney, Australia at the time of the Sandy Hook shootings in December 2012. I remember having to play the role of American Ambassador in providing answers to my perplexed Aussie friends who simply could not understand why mass shootings continue to occur in the States. It was in hearing myself answer their questions aloud that I realized how nonsensical it is to not have sensible gun control laws in place. Even as I explained the full context of the brilliance of the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment I was still unable to make sense of this American problem. On my first night back in America, I saw my friends giving a television interview on CNN; their daughter had been in one of the Sandy Hook classrooms. Miraculously, she was physically unharmed but many of her fellow students did not suffer the same fate. For many reasons, that shooting was the most traumatic for me personally. I believe in the sanctity of the joys of the childhood experience and I couldn’t sleep for many nights as I came to the belief that the frequency of gun deaths in one of the most wealthy and powerful nations in history had to be intentional. 28 dead in an American Elementary School.

Fast forward to the Parkland shooting last month and shockingly there were no murmurings in the street this time. Many people, myself included, received the notification on their phone and went about their day after learning that seventeen teenagers were gunned down in their high school. In the days that followed the remaining students, whose lives will never be the same, rose to the national spotlight with a defiant message to the nation: #NeverAgain. The politicians and the corporations that own them all responded with an all too familiar bluster around what actions they would take to change what has become status quo. 17 dead in an American High School… again. 

As much as we don’t want to admit it, this is who America is: A rabidly violent nation whose love affair with guns will cease at nothing or no one; not even elementary school children. It is, in fact, the “Wild Wild West” that the rest of the world portrays us to be because we allow this to happen time and time again. Sadly, while I praise the fervor of the Parkland students, and the Sandy Hook students before them, and the Virginia Tech students before them, and the Columbine students before them; I believe that they too will ultimately add their voices to a large chorus of people that want sensible gun control but will never see it. I hope I am wrong but #NeverAgain may just be yet another hashtag thrown in a mountainous heap of social justice hashtags that never sees any legitimate federal action. More dead in an American… doesn’t really matter now, we’re desensitized anyway.

Part Two: MLK 50 Forward: Bankrupt Justice