Get the facts on gun violence and get involved

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Researchers say that the initial sadness and outrage felt following a mass shooting ends after four days. By sharing some of what I’ve read since the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, I hope to keep this tragedy fresh in your minds, hopefully leading to action.

Over the Memorial Day weekend there were at least 15 mass shootings in the U.S. Gun Violence Archive recorded 209 deaths and 515 injuries from guns. According to Everytown for Gun Safety there have been 274 mass shootings since 2009. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for over 30 percent of the world’s mass shootings. More than 110 die in the U.S. from gun violence everyday.The US has more civilian owned firearms than people.

Is there anything that can be done to prevent another massacre? Some claim that unrestricted gun ownership is a constitutional right. It seems they believe the right to bear arms somehow supersedes the right to life, even the lives of school children. On the contrary, even conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2008 decision that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

I expect my elected officials to do something to stop this carnage. If not they, who? The purpose of government, after all, is to protect citizens. Interestingly, the two states with the lowest rates of guns deaths, Hawaii and Massachusetts, are among those with the toughest gun laws. The two with the highest gun death rates, Mississippi and Louisiana, are among those with the weakest.

Some say the real crisis is mental health although a very small percentage of gun violence in the U.S. is committed by people with mental illness. Many factors lead to gun violence including young men who have succumbed to toxic masculinity or have been radicalized into extremist ideology like white supremacy.

I urge you to take action by doing something as simple as signing a petition from groups such as Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Rising, and Sandy Hook Promise or as bold as donating to one of these organizations. Let’s not wait until the next gunning down of innocent school children. The time to act is now.

Sherry Haigh

Everett