2.228. Reflections on a School Shooting

Maybe when it starts happening at private schools, the elite will give a damn. I know the conspiracy theorists will quickly look for a way to debunk this reality, as they tried with Sandy Hook, in order to avoid taking a real hard look at the culture we created. Here is what we know: There have been 25 fatal school shootings since Colombine. This was even reported by Fox News, so you know nobody is hiding from this truth. Yet, what is being underreported is the fact that there have been 18 school shootings in 2018. We are only 45 days into the new year. To go one step further, check these numbers:

The First Month of 2018 (real-time data as of 2/1):

-1,260 gun deaths

-2,308 gun injuries

-57 children shot/killed

-245 teenagers shot/killed

-132 incidents of defensive gun use

-163 unintentional shootings

-190 armed home invasions

-23 mass shootings

-25 officers shot/killed

Note that the mass shootings include criminal violence. So, the problem is not restricted to kids sitting in a classroom trying not to do math work. In contrast, there were 474 gun deaths in Iraq in the first month of 2018. We nearly tripled an actual war zone.

There is a problem with gun violence in America that is reinforced by the way we see violence in our country and the almost casual access we have to high-powered assault weaponry. It would be easy work for me to walk to a nearby Big 5, pick up an AR-15-styled weapon, and continue walking less than a mile to the nearest school or community college where I could cause a great deal of harm. Only, I am not a person who has any interest or desire in doing such things. But who are those people? We learned (what we already knew but refused to accept) from the Las Vegas incident that those people can be anyone. There is not specific typology to violent gun offenders. On the other hand, I live in a community where most of the people who live around me are armed to the teeth. I should be terrified by my situation. Only, I live under the pretense of some basic social order and repercussion where a person isn’t willing to blow up their life by taking the lives of others. This latest school shooting is a reminder that, despite us not being willing to do such a thing, there are a wealth of people who are very much interested in ‘going out hard.’

Now what are we going to do about it? Probably nothing.

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