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Opinion: America’s shameful obsession with guns
Footage of the victims killed in a mass capturing on Monday on the Covenant College in Nashville, Tenn., are mounted to a memorial by Noah Reich (left) and David Maldonado, from the nonprofit Classroom of Compassion, close to the varsity on Wednesday.
Seth Herald/Getty Photographs
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Seth Herald/Getty Photographs
Footage of the victims killed in a mass capturing on Monday on the Covenant College in Nashville, Tenn., are mounted to a memorial by Noah Reich (left) and David Maldonado, from the nonprofit Classroom of Compassion, close to the varsity on Wednesday.
Seth Herald/Getty Photographs
There are practically 400 million civilian-owned weapons within the U.S., based on an estimate by the Small Arms Survey.
People usually lament how everybody appears to be trying down on the display screen of a smartphone, studying, texting, or watching movies. However in truth, we have now extra weapons than smartphone customers. We gripe in regards to the time we spend in vehicles, backed up alongside highways and roadways, going to work, working errands, consuming takeout between obligations, and lined up for gasoline. However there are extra weapons in America than registered motor automobiles.
Is that how we see ourselves? A rustic with extra weapons than vehicles or smartphones?
There have already been 131 mass shootings throughout America this 12 months, based on The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit group that tracks these incidents.
This week started, in fact, with information of the capturing on the Covenant College in Nashville. Three adults had been killed: Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, and Mike Hill. And three college students, nine-year olds: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. Police killed the shooter.
The Gun Violence Archive counted 646 mass shootings final 12 months in the US. Because of this on common, 4 or extra individuals, not together with the shooter, had been shot or killed in a single incident greater than 12 instances every week of 2022.
646 mass shootings. That is greater than the variety of films launched in American theaters final 12 months, or triples hit in Main League Baseball video games.
I spoke this week with Pam Simon. She is a former instructor who was shot within the arm and chest, close to her coronary heart, at an occasion for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011. 19 individuals had been shot that sunny morning — together with the Congresswoman. Six died, one among them a little bit woman. Pam Simon isn’t any relation, however we met in Tucson after she was shot. We name one another “Cousin” now.
Pam says when she hears of some new mass capturing, “Every time it sucks the air out of me. … I let myself be numb to keep away from the total affect of the brand new horror unfolding. But I additionally really feel responsibility sure to honor every life. In any case, somebody prayed for me or hung out enthusiastic about me, an injured individual they didn’t know …
“All we all know,” Pam Simon informed us, “is that there are new members of the ‘membership that nobody needs to belong to’ starting the agonizing journey of grief.”