180 School Days, More Than One Shooting a Day
The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own and bear arms, but it does not address the concern for those on the receiving end of the barrel. Nikolas Cruz, who opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, plead guilty for 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder on Oct. 20. This court hearing has reinvigorated the discourse surrounding gun control, a conversation that has greatly quieted recently. Despite this silence, instances of gun violence in the U.S. are far from over; rather, the frequent nature of shootings has caused the general public to grow desensitized to the ever-pressing issue.
Given that the Marjory Stoneman Douglass shooting was over three years ago and its ensuing severity, one would think there would have been more action taken since then to prevent gun violence on school campuses. Directly following this massacre, there were anti-gun violence protests across the country titled March for Our Lives on Mar. 24, 2018, with students across the nation joining in and staging walk-outs in an attempt to curb the issue. There was much discussion about the matter and pushes for legislation to be passed, yet nothing substantial was done on a national scale to regulate the number of mass shootings.
Now, there seems to be a lack of urgency regarding school shootings. In the past month alone, 25 mass shootings have been recorded in the Gun Violence Archive, yet most Americans are unaware of this or simply scroll past the article without much shock. Though the news covers incidents almost daily about yet another person opening fire in a public space, there is a lack of coverage regarding these incidents on large-scale media platforms and a lack of outrage among the people. On Oct. 17, one person was killed and seven more were wounded at Grambling State University in Louisiana when a gunman opened fire at the university’s homecoming event (National Broadcasting Company). A life was lost and multiple serious injuries resulted, yet there were hardly any posts spreading this news and the number of articles about the incident are minimal. Conversely, every news site and social media platform has been flooded with discussions about cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’s death on Oct. 21, which was caused by the accidental firing of a prop gun by actor and producer Alec Baldwin on the set of the upcoming film “Rust”. This accident led to assistant director Dave Halls’s job termination, as the incident is seen as negligence on his part for not properly checking if there were live rounds in the firearm before handing it to Baldwin. As tragic as Hutchins’s death is, it is hard to ignore the discrepancy between coverage over a shooting involving a popular actor in the entertainment industry and the shootings that occur on school campuses. Given the frequency of school shootings in the U.S., if every new shooting were to be discussed on an equal grand scale, there would be hardly any space to cover other pressing events. Unfortunately, this has led to radio silence about each new incident that involves schools, the public completely desensitized and used to seeing these stories far too often.
This numbness to shootings is a main contributor to why change is not being made. With such a small number of people protesting the far-too-loose gun laws in this country and the mindset that gun violence is “just the way it is”, those who hold political power are not being pushed to enact legislation to help curb the problem and strive to keep students safe. The Second Amendment has always been a greatly-contested political point, but it should go beyond a debate topic when it concerns public safety. If people stop ignoring the headlines about the latest school shooting and instead take note of these incidents and rebuild the momentum that was started in 2018 with March for Our Lives, there is a greater chance for change to be made regarding gun restrictions, which is a step forward in ensuring that school campuses are a safe place to be.
