I was in first grade when the Columbine shootings happened. It wasn’t an event that was barely talked about or that I heard parts of.
I knew exactly what happened.
It was everywhere- all over the news, but it wasn’t just a shooting that was given coverage.
People cared and were truly devastated, and they talked about it. For a long time.
But in the 14 years since that, shootings have stopped shocking our society the way they used to.
Don’t get me wrong: We still talk about some shootings- the ones we deem tragic enough, but that hurt and pain society collectively expresses doesn’t last. And it bothers me.
When the Newtown shooting happened, I was already home for Christmas break. But my Facebook friends immediately posted about their sadness and upset, but about three weeks later, when I was back in Gainesville with my friends, no one talked about it.
And when the Navy Yard and Capitol Hill shootings happened, barely any one posted about them on Facebook, let alone talked about them in person.
I understand the circumstances of these were far different from Newtown and Columbine and the number of deaths was much smaller.
It particularly bothers me that we, as college students, seem unphased by this.
It shouldn’t matter how many people are innocently killed; we should always care.
It should bother us because we should be looking to make the world a better place, and lost lives should upset us.
I think we’re not bothered because there is much violence in the world.
Shootings, death and every other bad thing in the world surround us, and since we see it all the time, we’ve put up a defense mechanism of “I won’t talk about this” to protect ourselves. And I include myself in this because I definitely think I’ve partaken in this defense.
But we need to stop thinking of shootings in terms of “Oh gosh, another one. That’s so sad. Time to move on with my day.”
We need to think of shootings like it’s the first one we’ve heard about. We need to act when we hear about these things.
I’m not saying that you or me speaking out will change anything necessarily, but at least, it’s a step in the right direction, instead of the wrong one we’re heading toward right now.
