There have been at least 178 public mass shooting since the 1990s. In just 2016, there have been at least 141 shootings and at least five since the Orlando terror attack at Pulse Nightclub that left 49 dead.
How many people have to die? How many times do we have to read the word shooting in our news feeds before our laws are changed and we can feel safe to go out in public again to simple things like the movies and bars again? I, personally, shamefully admit that I have become desensitized to the word, "shooting." That is how disgustingly common gun violence has become.
It took the deadliest mass shooting in American history for me to stop for the first time in a while, really stop and think about what had happened, for the first time since Sandy Hook, which isn't even the first time people my age has been affected by shootings.
1999: Columbine High School shooting left 13 lives cut short.
1999: In Atlanta, 12 people were killed in their own homes.
2005: Nine lives ended in Red Lake, Minnesota
2007: There was a shooting at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead.
2007: In Omaha, Nebraska, eight people were killed in a shooting at a local mall.
2009: There was a shooting in Fort Hood, Texas, that cut 13 lives short and injured 32, forever changing their lives.
2009: In Binghamton, New York, there was a shooting that left 13 dead at an immigrant community center.
2009: In Alabama, 10 more lives were cut short.
2009: In the safety of a nursing home, eight people were left dead in a shooting.
2010: In Manchester, Connecticut, eight were killed at Hartford Distributors.
2010: In Appomattox, Virginia, eight people were left dead in the safety of a home.
2011: In Seal Beach, California, at Salon Meritage, eight people were killed.
2012: There was a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children dead and eight adults dead.
2012: In an Aurora movie theater filled with people excited to see the newest "Batman" film, 12 lives were cut short.
2013: Inside a Washington Navy Yard 12 people were killed.
2015: There was a shooting in San Bernardino, California that left 14 dead.
2015: At Umpqua Community College, 9 lives are ended.
2015: In Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a place of worship in Charleston, South Carolina, nine lives were cut short.
In all of these tragic events, a gun was involved.
The most recent shooting that rings in our ears is Orlando. We can never forget the ones who came before it, though. Columbine will always be the high school that had a shooting. Aurora will always be where moviegoers were killed. Sandy Hook will always be where innocent children had their lives taken away from them and their teachers saved others by sacrificing their own.
I think what bothers me at least the most about Orlando is that the man who single-handedly committed the deadliest shooting in American History has been on the FBI's watchlist twice in his life. Why was he allowed to purchase a gun?
Orlando was already on everyone in the nations radars after Friday night when singer Christina Grimmie was fatally shot while interacting with her fans in Orlando after a show. The nation also couldn't even rest after the events in Orlando due to a man being arrested in West Hollywood that same Sunday after being found at a Pride event with multiple firearms. And shortly after, a teenage girl was shot dead in downtown Oakland.
This is not one state's issue or one city's issue. This is a national issue. Something that stays with me is hearing someone when I was a teenager tell me they were going to get their conceal and carry and a gun. When I asked them why, they simply said "Why not, it's so easy."
It is easier to purchase a gun, then it is to get your drivers license.
In the United States alone, citizens own about 270 million guns, according to a 2007 report by the Switzerland based Small Arms Survey. That is enough guns for every single citizen in a small country and then some. This number make the United State the number one county for firearms per capita.
I ask, what has to happen for our regulations to be changed? For it to become just as difficult, if not more difficult for a person to purchase a gun as it is for them to legally drive a car? How many more innocent people have to die? I hope the answer is no more.
