There are two options: We can accept this as normal, or we can do something about it.
Those are the basics of the latest school shooting, a massacre Wednesday that killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla. That represents 17 people who went off to school or work on a typical February day and never returned; and thousands of school families whose lives will never be the same; and a community and a nation left to ponder the depravity that we allow to continue as if it were somehow normal.
There is, to be clear, nothing normal about it. Whether at a nightclub in Orlando or a country music festival in Las Vegas or an elementary school in Connecticut, there is nothing normal or civilized about the carnage that we allow to proceed unabated. It is shameful that the most prescient commentary upon mass shootings in the United States comes from the satirical website The Onion: ” ‘No way to prevent this,’ says only nation where this regularly happens.” That was a headline on The Onion’s website in 2014, and it gets recycled on social media whenever another shooting grips Americans. The absurdity is notable as this nation’s response to such violence devolves into the realm of farce.
“Never again,” we said when 20 first-graders were among 26 people murdered in Newtown, Conn. “Never again” after 49 people were murdered at a nightclub in Orlando. “Never again” when 58 people were gunned down at a concert in Las Vegas. And yet we continue to elect people who lack the courage to demand better for our country.
Having 17 people gunned down at a high school is not the price of freedom; it is the cost of grossly misguided priorities. Which brings us back to the original question: Do we accept this as normal, or do we act?
Among the many responses to the Florida shooting in the past couple of days, one of the most insightful has come from basketball coach Steve Kerr: “It’s not enough apparently to move our leadership, our government, the people who are running this country, to actually do anything. But we can do something about it: We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people’s lives.”
Courage is not found in capitulating to the gun lobby; it is found in citizens rising up to say “never again” and voting as though they mean it. It is found in changing a culture that, according to the Congressional Research Service, accounts for about 48 percent of the world’s civilian gun ownership; it is found in admitting that the United States has a problem and there are, indeed, ways to address it. According to a 2016 study at the University of Alabama, the United States has accounted for 31 percent of the world’s mass shootings over the past 50 years, despite having 5 percent of the world’s population.
Indeed, there are many factors that can lead to a mass shooting. Mental health issues must be addressed; security must be robust. But it is an asinine assumption to suggest that the prevalence of guns and the availability of assault-style rifles are not contributing to the carnage. Congress should act quickly to readopt a ban on semi-automatic rifles like the one in place from 1994 to 2004. It should adopt universal and robust background checks. It should reinstate rules designed to prevent mentally ill people from obtaining weapons — a restriction overturned last year by the Trump administration.
A former student walked into a high school Wednesday and murdered 17 people. It is time for us to do something about it.
