With the San Bernardino shooting barely a week after the one in Colorado Springs, the United States has officially held 353 mass shootings in 2015 according to Shooting Tracker. Every other day I feel as though I get a notification on my phone telling about another shooting somewhere in North America. At this point, it doesn't have nearly the impact on me as before, and that's terrifying.
The other day, a friend of mine shared this article on Facebook; it tells about selling bulletproof blankets to elementary school children to use in times of shootings. This article sums up my feelings completely with its sentence, "It's more a sign that we've become so desensitized. We expect school shootings to happen." The expectation of a school shooting is like coming to terms with its existence. It's like rolling over and saying, "okay fine we can't stop you! We'll just give our children these blankets in the hopes that they'll protect them during your rampage!"
This is not enough. Yes, if I were a parent I would probably be in the mindset of preparing my child for the worst as well. Sadly, these blankets actually seem like a great idea with the current amount of shootings occurring; but there was a time period when this wasn't the case. I remember actually being shocked whenever a shooting was on the news, and feeling sympathetic towards the families of those injured, but thankful that these events are so rare.
Unfortunately this is no longer the case. If I hear a loud noise, I grow fearful. When I see someone who looks upset, I grow suspicious. Mass shootings encourage a mindset that says to fear, rather than trust people around you. Carrying a gun cannot be guaranteed to stop an outburst, and frankly I'm just as terrified of someone who openly carries a weapon with them to the supermarket as I am a shooter.
In 1986, Patrick Sherrill killed 14 coworkers and wounded six the day after his supervisor gave him a poor performance review. In 1990, James Pough killed ten General Motors Acceptance Corp. employees and wounded four because they repossessed his car. In 1991, Gang Lu killed four peers and injured two because he did not receive an academic honor. All these shooters killed themselves after releasing fire. Clearly those behind mass shootings are not mentally stable enough to analyze situations properly, so why would they respond predictably to others around them carrying guns? This article tells about those shootings, and names the most memorable ones between 1984 and 2015.
Personally (and pretty obviously by this point), I am an advocate for gun control. That being said, I can still understand why those further right than myself would believe that more guns would equal less shootings. Heck, maybe everything I said earlier is completely misinformed and inaccurate, and more guns will somehow equal less deaths! At this point, I don't really care whether it's liberals or conservatives who are right, I just want to stop hearing about shootings every time I turn on the news.
Mass shootings are an epidemic. Each one that occurs, whether they result in one death or 30, contributes to the desensitization of shooters and the loss of trust. I don't care who's right or wrong about gun control, all I know is that mass shootings need to end now. Squabbling over the politics behind it won't solve anything.
