ZACKERY GOSTISHA; Guest Writer; gostiszk@plu.edu
This piece may be triggering to those who have experienced gun violence.
It’s happened again. I started receiving a few news notifications one afternoon. At first, they don’t know much. There’s been a shooting. They think it was at a school. “Reports of multiple casualties.” I don’t want to read anymore, but for some reason I do. “Suspect still at large.” My first reaction is to mute my phone and pretend I didn’t see anything.
I check later and more notifications have flooded in. “At least 20 injured.” I feel something sad within me starting to grow; the very thing I was trying to stop when I first muted my phone.
“A suspect is in custody.” I want to feel better, and I think I might a little, but that all-too-familiar sadness is hanging over me like a ghostly shroud.
I push it to the corners of my mind. There’s class, homework, work. Nothing I can do about it. “At least 12 dead.”
At least it’s not as bad as some of the others. How can I be thinking this? Twelve lives lost; 12 beautiful journeys stolen. I can’t believe how my own mind is dealing with what’s happened.
“Seventeen killed, according to sheriff.” All too familiar. I never trust the first counts anymore, because they always go up. The final is usually known in the next day or two. There’s been enough of these that I should know by now.
The numbers tick up. One by one, lives are lost. How much has the Earth been robbed of with 17? I cannot fathom the potential and wonder of each: the genius; the hope; the brightness; the experiences; the future. And now they are gone, snuffed out in a mindless instant of violence.
The next day articles pour in. We need action, not words. Condolences. Thoughts and Prayers, demands. Tired old routines, a half-hearted act repeating itself each time. No life is given anymore; our hope is drained. The same distant angry tweets and posts. Over and over into the abyss.
There are cracks in our world; deep, ragged-edged cracks of a shattered society. When we lost our empathy we destroyed our humanity. We surrendered to loss and walled ourselves in with empty distance. We live our days in constant fear, never sure if we are next. In our fearful retreat from the pain of others we forgot that others will now retreat from our pain as well. We have begun to rot at the core.
We lie to ourselves and feign comfort. We say that it won’t happen here, even though it wouldn’t happen anywhere else before it did.
We blame mental health, when any glance at the facts shows people with mental health issues as far more likely to be the victims of gun violence than the perpetrators. We throw aside the fact that the majority of mass shooters do not have any documented or supposed mental health concerns. Topping it off, no one ever reforms our mental health resources, expands school counseling, abolishes insurance blocks for mental health programs or discusses them as a larger issue, despite the enormous benefit to human life that would ensue. This is a scapegoat, and it should be given up.
We return to the evidence that every single study of mass shootings shows: they happen because of access to guns more than anything else. The U.S. is not an outlier for violent crime; in fact our levels are similar to other developed nations. The only difference is sheer loss of life: American violent crime kills far more people than it does in any other developed country. It kills people because of guns. But what’s the point? If we’re ignored the first thousand times we mention it, what makes this time different? The same slogans and phrases and arguments are told, and they never go anywhere.
We never talk about our toxic morals that allow people to commit murder. A venomous ideology striking clean through our world; that a false “blaze of glory” is greater than anything a human life can offer. Violent individualism seeps into our collective veins and poisons us to such hateful thoughts. Arrogant self-worth forces 10 minutes of fearful dominion onto a charred pedestal reigning above humanity. Our moral codes imply this, and we callously avoid introspection.
I am afraid to have hope. I see survivors speaking out with bravery. I hear more and more talk. I feel greater and greater commitment. This time seems different, but last time did, too. And the time before that. And before that. Maybe this time it will be, but I’ve thought so too often to forget again. I hope my friends and family can forgive me for my retreat, although they may never do so. Perhaps I never have truly given up, as I am writing this anyway. I only look forward for the future. If this time is different, I embrace it. We can never fully surrender hope, and I sense a rumbling urge for action.
The jarred cracks in our society deepen, reinforce and spread. Our collective coping mechanisms fail us, and everything happens again. One day I will check my phone, read what’s happened, and the same wave of sadness and fear will rise within me yet again. I will have no new words, because everything has already been said. I can only dream of someday living to see change, no matter how uncertain.
