A crumbling foundation
How the United States Government allowed gun violence to become a national crisis
The United States has some of the loosest gun laws in the world, so it’s no surprise that we carry the highest number of mass shootings in the world as well. This year, there have been more mass shootings in the nation than calendar days so far- 93 to be exact, as stated by the GVA, or Gun Violence Archive.
According to the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, between 1998 and 2019, the U.S. had 101 mass shootings that resulted in four or more fatalities (those under four fatalities aren’t included in the study.) The only country that has come remotely close to having such extreme numbers of mass shootings as the United States is Russia, which only had 21 incidents between the same years of 1998 and 2019 and the same rule of undergoing four or more fatality rates.
Our school itself has had multiple gun and bomb threats against teachers and students, some of those resulting in us having to go outside onto the football field or the Stockbridge Area Emergency Services Authority having to come to us and pick us up via bus.
It’s scary just having a major gun or bomb threat, so just imagine an actual shooting happening to another school around you.
Seven Michigan high schools including Okemos, Jonesville, Portage, Saginaw, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and Muskegon, recently received false shooting calls, which the Detroit News disclosed. These schools are fairly close to us, Jackson only being 21 miles away.
Only a short distance further, on February 13th, Michigan State University was faced with the aftermath of a mass shooting on two of its campuses, one of them being MSU Union, a popular place for students to hang out and grab a bite, according to CNN. Three people died and five more were critically injured, as hundreds of students fled and hid in fear for their lives.
Unfortunately, Michigan isn’t the only one that faces both fake and real shooting threats; it’s happening all over the country.
For example, California is one of eight states that have banned assault weapons, yet they’ve had nine mass shootings within the months of January and February, resulting in 33 lives taken including 33 additional injuries. In Florida, eight mass shootings occurred just in January, where 44 citizens were injured and eight were killed. In Texas, there have been nine mass shootings, resulting in 27 injuries and 10 casualties. Mass shootings are happening all around us, and the majority aren’t even talked about or discussed on the news because it happens so frequently. With that in mind, it’s imperative that there needs to be reform.
55 years ago, we recognized that guns were a problem and passed the Gun Control act of 1968 whose primary purpose is to prevent these types of incidents. If this is the case, then why are guns still being taken advantage of if laws such as this one are in place?
However, the question shouldn’t be why, but how.
How. Such a simple word yet so complex.
How is a gun more important than somebody’s life? How can we scream that the second amendment gives us the right to bear
arms when those arms can shoot up to 600 rounds per minute? How, after all the violence and shootings the nation has been through such Sandy Hook, Connecticut; Ulvade, Texas; Oxford High School, Virginia Tech; the Harvest Music Festival, Las Vegas and the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, can the U.S. government still be able to support something so ill-omened, such as a gun, more than a human being’s life?
