Early on Sunday morning, June 12th, our nation officially experienced the worst mass shooting in our history. Gunman Omar Mateen walked into an Orlando night club around 2 a.m. EST and opened fire, killing 50 and wounding 53.
It is the worst mass shooting the United States has ever seen, taking the place of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 that claimed 32 lives.
Pulse, self proclaimed as "Orlando's hottest gay bar," was holding a promotion Saturday night urging club-goers to attend. As many as 300 people were at the club during the time of the attack. The killing was a scene described by survivors as horrific, terrifying and grotesque.
As the media releases more information, and keeps us up to date on the facts and timelines the events, many people have come to social media to express their opinions on the event and guns are once again revealing themselves as a hot-button talking point in our country.
Like so many times in recent years, the classic debate of conservative and liberal ideals are going at it on networks like Facebook and Twitter. The same banter and rhetoric of "I'm enjoying my 2nd Amendment rights" and "Guns aren't the problem, people are!" again and again flows through newsfeeds and walls across the country. Donald Trump himself was quick to keypad, tweeting "Appreciate the congrats for being right about radical Islamic terrorism...we must be smart!" Unfortunately, it once again has become an "us versus them" all out war between personal ideals and principals that is digging this country deeper and deeper into eventual turmoil.
This happens every time, doesn't it? Every mass shooting that reaches national media attention produces the exact same rhetoric and public outrage each and every time. We hear of the tragedy, mourn the loss of life, pettily debate about guns for two weeks and then forget about it all together. It's like we are living in this fantasy that these tragedies are anomalies that don't represent a universal truth. But how many anomalies makes a trend and how many trends make a problem? Because I see a huge problem and a lack of action to curb it. According to the American Journal of Medicine, the U.S. experiences gun violence at 25 times the rate of other high-income, developed countries. We have the highest per capita gun total of any other developed country and this has lead to us accounting for 82 percent of all gun related deaths of all the developed countries combined.
Sandy Hook Elementary, one of the worst tragedies we experienced as a nation, claimed 26 lives - with 20 being children ages 6-7. This sparked anger and disbelief into America and we said "never again." What has happened since? Senate-squashed gun control legislation and 998 mass shootings involving 4 or more people leaving at least 1,100 dead. How many trends make a problem?
The Orlando shooter was even using the exact same assault rifle used in the Sandy Hook shooting. Yet, we are still hearing the "it's the person, not the gun" arguments that have become all too familiar.
I can't find a perfect solution to our nation's gun problem, but what I can do is show those who have succeeded. Australia, after experiencing the worst mass shooting in their nation's history in April of 1996 banned guns all together with huge government buy-backs and ultra tight gun control legislation. This policy is one the NRA has coined as "...not the definition of common sense." What happened as a result you ask? They have had no mass shootings since. Zero. Your chance of being killed with a firearm in Australia since the '96 killings has dropped 72 percent. We see very similar results in countries like Canada and the U.K. and many call for the same policies here with each suggestion shot down by the "that doesn't mean it will work here, we're not like any other country" arguments.
I can't sit here and pretend I have the answer to our gun problem in the United States because if a solution were that simple there's no doubt we would be spared from these tragedies altogether. However, it doesn't take a degree in public policy to recognize a clear problem. Obviously the course we are trending on is a bloody one, yet we continue down it. I expect better from this country. Let's make it stop. Stop the sarcasm, stop the rhetoric and stop the hate. We've got a problem, let's address it like adults and find a solution. I pray for my safety, my future kid's safety and this nation's safety; that this time when we say "never again" we mean it.
