On October 1, 2017, a man opened fire on a Las Vegas concert, killing 58 people and wounding over 500. The following morning the news outlets were overloaded with images, videos, casualty estimates and first-hand counts of concert-goers who survived the carnage. The entire country was in a state of utter shock, because this was the largest mass shooting in American history. We all know the story, because seeing it on TV and social media was inescapable.
How long did America fixate on this unimaginable tragedy? A few days? A week? By the end of the month it was all but forgotten by those not directly involved. Gun control was once again swept under the rug, and America largely moved on. Nearly 600 killed or injured. The town where I lived for the final two years of high school had a population of 750. The number of people shot was the same as roughly 80 percent of the town I lived in. And yet, the mourning of the mass tragedy that occurred on that night seemed to dissipate just as quickly as it began. By the time the next mass killing occurred, exactly 30 days later, Las Vegas was just a stain on our memories.
On October 31, 2017 an ISIS sympathizer rented a Home Depot truck and ran down cyclists and pedestrians on a one-mile stretch of a New York City bike path. Eight people were killed and another 11 injured, including some who were foreign tourists. This mass tragedy was different, because it wasn't one of the mass shootings that have become an ingrained part of American culture, whether we like to admit it or not. It was a terror attack. That detail alone made this a significant event. But by that very same night, most of America was back to its Halloween festivities and the tragedy was already being left behind.
Two days later, on the night of November 1, 2017, a man walked into a Denver Walmart, casually shot and killed three people, then walked back out of the store as cavalierly as he entered. It received a segment on the news, was a talking point on social media for a day, and then left behind. When Googling "Walmart Shooting," another story pops up about a man who discharged a gun inside a Walmart in Augusta, Main on Monday, November 6. I've certainly never gone to Walmart and witnessed someone pull out a gun and fire it off. If I did, not only would I never forget it, I would probably be afraid to walk into large stores and shopping centers for the rest of my life. Yet, the story was so "insignificant" that it barely made news.
On Sunday, November 5, a man assassinated 26 worshipers inside a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. I was at my Grandparents' house that afternoon, seated in front of the brick fireplace next to my grandmother, shopping on Wayfair for a new sofa for my basement library remodel. My grandpa was across the room, watching TV from his usual spot on the reclining loveseat, the cushion in perfect convex around his body. He suddenly said "Ohp, looks like another shooting." I glanced over at the television, announcing that more than 20 people had been killed while attending a church service in Texas, then went back to sofa shopping with Grandma. That was it, a span of about 10 seconds, then I turned back to my life as if nothing had happened.
I didn't think any more about it until two mornings later, when I was watching the CBS Evening News from the previous night on the CBS app on my phone, and Jim Axelrod did a segment (well worth the watch if you have a couple of minutes) questioning whether we are growing numb to these announcements of mass murder. He announced that "two of the five deadliest shootings in modern American history have taken place in the last 35 days. They are all competing for space in our collective consciousness -- and getting crowded out." That was when I realized how I myself had barely noticed the announcement of the shooting two days before.
In the spring of 1999, when I was in eighth grade, two students murdered 13 people and injured 21 more in a mass shooting; one that is well-remembered in America -- as Columbine. Hearing that word, Columbine, still sends goosebumps crashing in a wave down my arms. Only half as many people were killed in that shooting as the church shooting in Texas. Yet Columbine is well-remembered by all of us who were old enough to have been affected by it.
The story broke loose on TV stations across the country. Regularly scheduled programming was stopped and news broadcasting of the event took over for the rest of the day; the rest of the week. Life halted everywhere while the whole of America watched in shock and horror, absorbing every detail and trying to make sense of the unthinkable. It was weeks before discussion slowed and lives began to return to normal. 18 years later, that event is still renowned in modern history.
So how, then, can a shooting that resulted in double the deaths elicit only 10 seconds of attention? Perhaps we should be as concerned with the effect, or lack thereof, that a shooting has on us as we are with the shooting itself. Society is experiencing a collective numbing to these heinous events; events that should be sending a ripple of fear and devastation to our very cores. Instead we are being desensitized.
The common cure for fear is overexposure to the fear-inducing stimulus. Being continuously subjected to the terror creates a sense of "normalcy" to the object of one's fear, and the person begins to experience less significant reactions to it. So, it seems, the overexposure of Americans to mass murder is creating a sense of normalcy in us to these tragic events. Clearly it could happen to any of us at any time. At a concert. At the grocery store. In church. In a large city. In a tiny town. No one is truly safe. And perhaps our growing numbness prevents us from fully grasping that reality.
If we reach a point where we no longer respond emotionally, how will we feel a great enough sense of urgency to affect the needed change -- change in policy, change in regulation, change in culture -- that can bring an end to these senseless and unnecessary tragedies? How can we put forth the effort needed to save the lives of potential future victims? We have the power to stop it...but first we have to shake off the numbness and revive the emotion that urges us to react. Then, we can fight back.
