The recent incident of a stabbing at Ohio State University brings up the question of safety on school campuses. It brings back memories of tragic incidents like the night club shooting in Orlando, Florida and Columbine High School. But, as this issue comes back into the spotlight once again, it will soon be forgotten. It is a vicious cycle that keeps occurring in the United States.
In 2012 alone, there were sixteen mass shootings in the US including the shooting in Aurora, Colorado in the movie theater and in Newtown, Connecticut a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Right after the shooting, there was a police presence before entering the movie theater.
I remember going to see a movie up in Cleveland and my mom’s purse was searched, and we both were searched by a hand-held metal detector before we went in for the movie. Then, a few months later, I went to the theater again, but all signs of the police were gone.
A similar story occurred after Sandy Hook. For a month or so after the shooting, security at my high school were enforcing teachers to have their doors closed and everyone was concerned about their safety, but as time passed, the concern went down. Security went back to being relaxed as if nothing happened.
Why, as a society are we so easy to forget tragedies? It would be a different story if there was legislation that was changed to reform gun control laws, but nothing has changed. President Obama said that, “we have been through this too many times” and yet, Congress cannot come together to make any changes. Families of Sandy Hook made a great effort to pressure the government into closing loopholes in purchasing weapons and had the issue in the public eye for months and people supported the families, but their efforts came with no reward.
This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is an issue for everyone. In 2015, it seemed that the flag was at half mast more than not. It became a social normality to hear about another shooting somewhere in the country and we have come to accept these facts. On the way to school, I would see a flag at half mast and think, “where was the shooting today?” It should set off alarms in our heads that the number of mass shootings increased and we have developed this numbness to it where it isn’t breaking news when another one occurs.
We need to collectively work together to break the cycle of being concerned for a few weeks about our safety out in public from gun violence and then forget about it.
There has to be a solution to this problem. We can’t keep kicking the problem down the road expecting it to fix itself. If we really want to see change, we can’t let these incidents be forgotten about. No one is exempt from these unfortunate incidents. How many more people must be injured or die before someone decides that enough is enough? These incidents need to stay in the public eye and there needs to be a demand that something needs to change.
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