Gun Control: If Not To Save Each Other, At Least To Save Ourselves
What’s happening?
By now, everyone has stopped posting about the latest American school shooting. It’s yesterday’s news, literally. Once television news had broadcast the name of the shooter along with a description of his life and personality, and had interviewed enough bereaved students and families to avoid repeating too many clips in the 24-hour news cycle, the shooting became another in a long list of crimes involving gun violence that’s been growing for many years. The shooting was terrifying, but even more frightening was the reaction it caused — rather, the lack thereof.
Why don’t we care anymore?
We are being conditioned to feel nothing in response to these tragedies by way of constant exposure. Seeing the headlines about what happened in Oregon should have lit a fire in me, but I just felt tired and sad. That’s not acceptable. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb and resign ourselves to this horrific fate. We need to remember there is more value in human life than there is in desiring firearms. We need to make a change and stop pretending guns aren’t the problem. We need to stop remembering these killers as quietly troubled people who made unfortunate mistakes. We need to acknowledge this as what it is: terrorism. Our response to these horrific acts should be to take action against them, yet we’ve been so frightened by their frequency that we’ve completely detached from a very real and very threatening situation. We’ve been terrorized to the point of feeling nothing when we read these headlines, and that in itself should cause us to be terrified.
Why does it keep happening?
Proponents of the second amendment are always quick to blame the media for the high volume of gun violence in the United States. While violent video games and movies certainly do have an impact on our collective conscious, there is no real evidence that it can actually drive people to become violent. However, within the desperation of this claim, there’s a thin lining of truth. Our media is not entirely blameless in this situation, but it’s not Hollywood — it’s the news.
News media has created a narrative concerning mass murderers that is not only blatantly misinformed, but insulting. Pundits across the political spectrum ascribe the same label to every one of them: mentally ill. Yes, of course, a mentally sound person would not commit these kinds of crimes, but there are so many other factors that none of these pundits ever acknowledge.
The first thing most gun enthusiasts say when a shooting tragedy occurs is something along the lines of, “What a sicko.” It’s a clever subversion from the biggest issue at hand; a red herring to distract from the true solution to this all-too-real problem. Blaming violence on the mentally ill is easy because it allows us to remove ourselves from the situation. We would never commit such atrocities, because we are of sound mind. We are not psychopaths. These killers are crazed, and they need help. How unfortunate it is that the mental health system in this country has failed them. The problem with this scapegoat is not only that it casts all who suffer from mental illness in a horribly unflattering and often dishonest light; it also completely ignores the real reason why so many of these tragedies keep happening in this country.
The main factor many ignore is the widespread and irresponsible sale of guns in America. People who are mentally ill and tend to express their illness through violence would not be able to do so if they didn’t have access to a medium for their violence.
People like the Oregon shooter see the stories of sad, disturbed people driven to violence and think their actions are justified. We need to tell these stories honestly.
There is no driving force behind these crimes but pure hatred.
Our media has created a culture that accepts this hatred as a symptom of greater suffering. We let hateful people believe it’s not their fault and that they have no choice. Then we freely sell them guns. The culture we have created cannot be quickly reversed. The unrestricted sale of guns and ammunition can. It’s the first logical step toward creating a safer world for ourselves in an increasingly dangerous and terrifying country.
If we are ever going to reverse this frightening culture of apathy — this dangerous habit of passing the blame — we need to make an effort to control the sale of guns in America. We cannot move forward until we look back and recognize the horror of what’s been happening, and instead of simply shaking our heads and muttering about what a shame it is that “psychos” have guns, we must take action.
Contact your local representative. Put together a petition. Make your voice heard, and encourage U.S. lawmakers to do something about this.
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