Unfortunately, we all know the story. Person with deep societal resentment gets gun, person uses gun, mass tragedy ensues. This infamous U.S. tradition has been a centerpiece of American consciousness ever since Columbine in 1999, gay clubs, synagogues, yoga studios and, most tragically, schools have all fallen victim.
And make no mistake, this is an American tradition. No other developed country has this long and continued struggle with gun violence. Other countries have stricter gun laws, like Japan, where guns are so difficult to obtain that people commit acts of violence with knives, making such events much less common, and less lethal. There is, on average, one mass shooting per day in America. Japan rarely exceeds 10 gun deaths per year. So why does America have so much difficulty with this topic? It’s not like instituting gun control wouldn’t work in America. Take Australia, which was able to actually respond to a mass shooting, the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996. They took initiative after this tragedy by passing laws controlling the possession of guns, and it worked; Australia managed to go two decades without any mass shootings.
One could blame powerful interest groups like the National Rifle Association, who exert considerable economic and political influence over Congress through their highly devoted supporters. However, this problem is far more insidious than that: it comes from America’s reverence surrounding tragedy.
By collectively flying our flags half-mast after tragedies like this, we as a society shut down any chance for discussion on the issue. The most staunch defenders of gun rights attack any calls for reform following mass shootings as “politicizing the incident,” and there the discussion ends, smothered by a national obsession with fetishizing tragedy. At this point, we as a society are dismayed by shootings because we can no longer be surprised by them. The best answer to shootings might not even be gun control, but we’re not going to find any solution if we can’t even have the simplest national discussions.
“At this point, we as a society are dismayed by shootings because we can no longer be surprised by them”
A flag at half mast is at least better than one being frantically waved by a patriot so obsessed with the American image of freedom that they’re unwilling to discuss or compromise on the topic of gun control. Yes, the Second Amendment exists, and yes it does provide civilians with the right to own and bear guns, but some things are just common sense. No, the government doesn’t want to take your guns — not if you are sane of mind with no serious criminal record, and trained in safely using firearms. It doesn’t matter that according to an analysis of crime statistics from 2007 to 2011 from Harvard University there is “little evidence that SDGU [self defense gun use] is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss.” So long as gun ownership is a fundamental American right, people are entitled to own guns, but they should at least enable a discussion on how best to implement gun regulations to preserve their freedoms while ensuring guns are only in safe hands.
Back in October, I realized a terrible truth. I couldn’t tell what we were mourning anymore. Was it the synagogue, the bar or the yoga studio? They all blurred together, the token interviews with distraught family talking about how nice the victim was, politicians calling it a tragedy and stopping the conversation there, the one soundbite of a person asking for gun control — and then it’s gone. The media moves on because it’s old news.
“They all blurred together, the token interviews with distraught family talking about how nice the victim was”
Frankly, I’m disgusted. It’s a disgrace and an insult to all those who have died in preventable mass shootings that we aren’t able or willing to do more to prevent them. So let that flag fly high, because this is the American way. Let that flag fly high, because we as a society should be proud that apparently not even the murder of children will get in the way of the great USA. Maybe next time our thoughts and prayers will jam the gun and stop the bullets, because we certainly don’t care enough to stop them.
But this cannot be where the story ends. For the first time in a decade, there has been hope for change: Parkland. In the aftermath of this tragedy, society didn’t just keep a respectful silence, it fought for change. Grassroots movements like March for Our Lives rallied many to demand more effective gun laws, a debate over gun control was reignited, and many states took action against gun violence. Fundamentally, the problem isn’t legislators in Washington or influential organizations fighting for gun rights, it’s us, the American people. Whenever we sit idly by and pay our token respects to the dead, we are complicit in maintaining a deadly status quo. If we reject the respectful nothings around gun violence, and fight, fight, fight for change, we’ll see it — because that is why we fly this flag in the first place.
