In wake of the 911 phone calls from the Newtown shooting released on December 4, the issue of gun control and mass shootings has returned to the forefront of American political dialogue. Coincidentally, on the same day, CNN released a poll with results showing a 6% decline in support for stricter gun laws compared to the same polling in early January of this year. As we begin to commemorate the one-year anniversary of one of the largest mass shootings in U.S. history, has America lost its sensitivity to such tragedies along the way?
Within nine months, America experienced the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, and the Boston Marathon bombing. Among these calamities that gained worldwide attention, smaller ones occurred each day. Homicide rates in major U.S. cities are astounding and vastly larger than those of entire nations across the world. To gain perspective, Chicago, recently named the “murder capital” of the country for 513 homicides this year alone, had 9.5 times the amount of murders as Ireland, a country double its population size.
Unfortunately, many Americans have become accustomed to turning on the news to see murders headlining local programming night after night. Because of the constant exposure to gun violence, whether it be through the news, video games, or other outlets, desensitization to such tragedies is almost inevitable. Gun violence has become such a prominent aspect of modern American culture that the shock value of murders has significantly declined.
The lessened shock cannot become synonymous with indifference to gun violence. The rise in mass shootings has subsequently led to the overshadowing of daily homicides from guns. Each victim of gun violence, whether it is the result of an isolated incident or a mass killing, is a victim regardless of the circumstances of the murder. These isolated incidents are just as important as mass killings because the end results are the same.
Although the United States is far from a perfect nation at the moment, the issue of gun control cannot take a back seat because our leaders in Washington are too focused on other matters, namely arguing with each other. Gun violence has become out of control because of a right named in the Constitution that several Americans are unwilling to amend. Bearing arms was necessary in 1776; it is not necessary to do so in 2013. The argument of wanting to bear arms for protection will only fuel the gun control issue- you cannot fight fire with fire. Guns are illegal in most European countries and their murder rates are immensely lower than the United States’. It is time to put the issue of gun control front and center in Washington, so that America will not become completely desensitized to unnecessary deaths.
Disclaimer: This article is solely the author’s opinion and does not speak on behalf of Her Campus.