This past weekend, on September 28th Illinois State University had their Homecoming, the day was filled with Redbird spirit and excitement. However, it ended with a pop-up party where over 1,000 people attended. While this party seemed chaotic but harmless it ended with 6 bullets being shot, an 18-year-old boy dying and another 18-year-old-boy severely injured.
My apartment complex was the place where these bullets were shot, I was a witness to what happened. It is hard to put words to the plethora of emotions I felt that night, and have continued to feel since, but I was lucky. I had the safety of my apartment while others had to flee the scene not knowing if they would survive.
The night ended with fear, yet those who didn’t experience the terror of the gun violence seemed to be numb to what happened on campus. Sunday was just the day after homecoming for many. They heard about the crime, but they couldn’t quite understand the weight of what happened.
Yes, nobody from our ISU community was physically harmed, but does that make the murder and panic any less significant? Gun violence has become so prevalent I question if we, as a society, have begun to see shootings as statistics rather than lives lost and trauma endured. Â
It is difficult to realize the problem that guns have in the US until seeing, according to ABC news, “As of Sept. 5, at least 11,598 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. this year — an average of almost 47 deaths each day”. The numbers are overwhelming and difficult to process, 47 people a day in the US die not by natural causes, but because of someone with a gun. Far too often, I hear about new incidents of gun violence and feel that it has become a part of everyday life. Death by gunfire should not feel normal.
The prevalence of shootings has made us as a society numb and unaware of just how dangerous this issue has become in the US. Since the shooting, I have heard how people are frustrated about the fact the pop-up party happened, but I have not heard people discuss the permanent impact the gun had on the lives of two young people. People seem to be angered by the threat they could have experienced while neglecting to acknowledge the effects it did have on others. While the topic is not easy to talk about, ignoring the problem of gun violence is fueling the problem.
I urge you all to research the implications of gun violence and learn about the desensitization we have had from it. Talking about the topic and navigating solutions can prevent further terror from occurring. Writing an article on the pop-up event was not easy for me. Still, I did it because I think somebody needs to discuss the lasting impact guns can have and because I wanted to highlight that while nobody in the ISU was physically harmed, it does not mean we were not affected by what happened.