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Victoria Story (Editor)
A mass shooting is defined by the Gun Violence Archive as a single incident where four or more people where shot or killed by a single shooter not including the shooter at the same general time and location.
If we go by this definition, as of Feb. 14 there have been 30 mass shootings in 2018.
Shortly after the Valentine’s Day school shooting in Florida, the number 18 started popping up all over social media. Eighteen school shooting’s in 2018 alone was what most of the posts said.
This number is inaccurate. According to The Washington Post, this number originated from Everytown for Gun Safety, which is a non-profit group that works to prevent gun violence. This number was inflated and in fact only five of the incidents listed on Everytown where during school hours and resulted in injury.
This number, while not as staggering as 18 is still horrible. No student, faculty or staff should ever have to worry about being killed while in a school. Schools are supposed to be a place of safety and learning and instead parents, teachers and schools have to address these issues with their children. A parent has enough to worry about while raising a child they shouldn’t have to add, “will my child be shot at school” to that list.
It seems that people had started becoming desensitized to the mass murder that happens in our country on a regular basis.
Instead of anything being done, “thoughts and prayers” are being sent.
The shooting in Florida may have finally started waking people up.
Kids and teachers all over the country are calling for change they are no longer satisfied with thoughts and prayers and for good reason. Students are staging walkouts, giving speeches and speaking out on gun control. These students aren’t even of voting age, but they still have more sense of what would be good for our country then our politicians do.
The majority of people in the country approve of stricter gun laws, but still, the argument of “You can’t take my guns away” persists. No one is trying to take handguns and shotguns away, but instead make the background checks stricter and make it harder for people who shouldn’t have guns to get them. While we are at it we should probably provide more funding to mental health and stop stigmatizing it.
There are so many redundant arguments against gun control, but the reality is that doing nothing isn’t solving anything and people need to start having an open conversation about this issue. The topic of gun control can stir strong feelings, but not talking about it just perpetuates the problem.
It seems that after every shooting there is a cycle that always results in nothing being done. This cycle needs to come to an end. Something needs to be done.
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