You might recall that on Sept. 19, two men opened fire on a park on the south side of Chicago, wounding 13 people including a 3-year-old boy. If you think back a little further, you might also remember earlier that same week, another gunman shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, just blocks away from our nation’s Capitol. In fact, if you can recount every such incident over the last four years, you’ll find that 43 mass shootings—nearly one for every month during that time period—occurred in the United States. Still, after all the media attention, after all the political warfare, after all the empty talk of change, nothing has happened.
In his remarks at the memorial service for the victims of the Navy Yard shooting, President Barack Obama said, “It ought to obsess us… We can’t accept this.”
He’s right.
In 2010 alone, 8,775 victims—nearly three times as many Americans who were killed on 9/11—were murdered with firearms. Imagine an event on the scale of 9/11 happening three times every year. This should shock us; this should completely halt every American where he or she stands. And while we continually grieve the tragedy that happened over 12 years ago and hunt abroad the terrorists of those attacks, we’ve already lost the will to implement the reforms necessary to prevent further gun violence here at home.
These reforms are simply common sense. One of the most viable options, administering mandatory background checks on all gun sales, is so popular that it garners support from 92 percent of Americans. So why haven’t we changed?
You might believe that it’s the fault of our gridlocked Congress, and that is at least partially true in the instances these events have even triggered a major response in our Capitol. Republicans in Washington have maliciously opposed any sort of restrictions on what they claim to be their Second Amendment rights. Though if they read the Second Amendment, they would know that the right to bear arms is guaranteed only to a “well regulated militia.” I digress. And certainly the almighty National Rifle Association has used its extraordinary power to whip moderate Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in line with its extreme political agenda.
However, Washington politics isn’t completely to blame. In fact, our do-nothing Congress is only one small part of our hindrances. Let me explain how the system works: a bad person gets hold of a gun and perpetrates a mass shooting, the media explodes with graphic details and invasive interviews with victims’ family members, we become horrified that such an incident is possible in our great society, the media suggests it’s time to change our laws, we move on and then the cycle repeats. We lose our motivation. We do not act. There is no change.
The truth is we are a do-nothing people. Somewhere along the way in our history, we forgot that we are citizens of a republic and that we too have obligations in creating a more perfect union. When it is time to amend our laws, it is our responsibility to demand action, and when our representatives fail to take action, it is our duty to remind them that they are beholden to our views and our votes. If they continue to fail, we must remove them.
This certainly hasn’t been the case with gun violence. Two weeks after two major instances of preventable gun violence, our leaders in Washington are debating whether to shut down the government over a law that has been upheld by all three powers of our constitution. If we had fulfilled our duties as citizens of the United States, Congress would have passed a law creating mandatory background checks yesterday.
During his speech Sunday, President Obama also said, “There is nothing normal about innocent men and women being gunned down where they work. There is nothing normal about our children being gunned down in their classrooms. There is nothing normal about children dying in our streets from stray bullets.”
Unfortunately, in this instance, he’s wrong. This is normal. This is business as usual. These sickening events are a routine chapter of our narrative, but they don’t have to be. Our country is ready for you to take action, and until you do, more shootings will occur and the tragic cycle of apathy will continue.
This is Sean’s first article. How do you suppose we end the streak of violence? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
