Two days in a row I have awakened with notifications on my phone from the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC for short. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary—I like getting the news updates. What is unusual is that both mornings I woke up to articles about shootings in Florida. The first being the senseless murder of Christina Grimmie at her own concert and the suicide of her shooter in Orlando, Florida followed by the mass shooting at the Pulse club also in Orlando, Florida. 50 people died and more than 53 people were injured, making last night’s attack at Pulse the worst mass shooting in the United States in the last 25 years.
And yet, the general American public is becoming more and more numb to news reports of shootings and gun violence every day. Because every day we are hearing about people being killed, whether accidentally or intentionally, by guns. In the last year, according to the BBC, the United States suffered “372 mass shootings, defined as a single incident that kills or injures four or more people. Some 475 people were killed and 1,870 wounded.” There is absolutely no reason that the suspect in the Pulse shooting, Omar Mateen, should have been able to purchase and carry an AR-15 assault rifle because there isn’t currently a war happening in the United States. People shouldn’t be able to carry assault rifles like that on a daily basis. It’s unnecessary and unsafe.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations is calling the Pulse shooting an act of terrorism. Others have also called it a large-scale hate crime. Pulse is a gay club and many cities are currently holding Pride parades right now. Mateen was also known to have a problem with the LGBT+ community, reportedly becoming very angry after seeing a gay couple kissing in Miami recently. Because of this man, the city of Orlando is now in a state of emergency. Because of this man, 50 people lost their lives and their family and friends will mourn these losses forever. Because of this man, we all feel a little bit less safe. But still, we continue to do nothing about gun violence in the United States.
We are the only country of this size and level of wealth that still has problems like this on such a regular basis. Just as an example so you can see how other countries handle this problem, in late April 1996 a man in Australia, Martin Bryant went on a killing spree in Australia. 35 people were killed. Following the Port Arthur massacre, as Bryant’s killing spree came to be known, strict gun control laws that restricted private ownership of high capacity semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns, and pump-action shotguns were introduced in Australia. Since then, there have been zero mass shootings since 1996. That’s twenty years without a problem that the United States struggles with nearly every single day.
At this point, all I can say is that I hope those whose lives were cut tragically short may rest in peace and that those who were injured have speedy recoveries. My heart breaks for all of the families that have been affected by the tragedies of the last two days. Lastly, we need to do something about this. We cannot let horrible misfortunes like this to continue happening.
