Shootings have become a norm in this country. The average American wakes up to the same news every day: a new shooting. Each year since the first mass school shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, gun laws have gone nowhere since the semi-automatic ban in 1994. In 2022 there were up to 604 mass shootings. How much have we really done to actively stop the 40,000 people who died in 2022 due to gun violence? Why have we not done more to support those 18-year-old kids who are plagued with trauma they can’t forget? Firearms have become one of the leading causes of death for Americans at any age.
It is nearly impossible to name every shooting that has happened this year in the United States. One of the most shocking of these occurred on May 24, 2022, with 22 dead, mostly children ages 8-10. On May 14, 2022, 10 dead, most simply grocery shopping for their next meals. How much more is it going to take before we do something–anything? Americans are more than exhausted. Compiling shootings with the long three years of COVID-19, we’ve all experienced too much death.
In the United States, the right to bear arms is currently in the second amendment.
In London, the use of handguns was banned in 1996 after their first and only mass shooting. In 1996, immediately banned all semi-automatic weapons, pump shotguns, and rifles after their first mass shooting, where 35 people died.
Australia has had no mass shootings since 1996. And school shootings have increased every year since 1991. Any firearm manually operated by a bolt, pump, lever, or slide action. Assault weapons are used by the military, law enforcement, and retired law enforcement, and Antique weapons are illegal. What good has that done? How have we let politics influence our decisions to the point we don’t have human decency? It is known that there are more shootings in red states.
In 2016, 37,353 gun deaths occurred in the United States. Of these gun-related deaths, 22,938 were suicides, and 14,415 were homicides. Of The homicides, 71 were classified as the result of a mass shooting. A paper written in 2016 from the University of Alabama compared 171 countries from 1966 to 2012 and concluded that the United States accounted for only 5% of the world’s population but 31% of its mass shootings. What more could we possibly ask for, apologies for wanting to be able to attend school without being worried that someone could slip in with a gun? How much more death and tragedy must it take for you to realize there is a simple fix: gun control laws, which have been shown to work?