Desensitized, Gun Violence in America
Tom the Dancing Bug 1269 goodguy-with-a-gun
“Déjà Vu” is a common intuitive experience that has happened to many of us. The expression is derived from the French, meaning “already seen.” When it occurs, it seems to spark our memory of a place we have already been, a person we have already seen, or an act we have already done.
-Psychology Today, Emotional Freedom 2010
Yesterday, was quite profound for me. Not because of anything in particular that I had done, created or even happened in my life. But, I became aware of my own growing desensitization of Gun Violence in the United States.
Typically, one watches in horror when a scene plays out on the news. We are glued to the screen as a unified nation, no matter how briefly. We sit in disbelief that a person; a neighbor, someone who could be living among us could cause such atrocities.
But our unification ends there.
For a brief moment we are enraged, saddened or even emboldened to take a stand against a government who refuses to even mention “Gun Control;” while citizens blindly recant stats they did not research themselves. They vow, “MORE GUNS, is what we actually need, not less!”
Yesterday though, yesterday seemed to be a turning point, not only for me, but also for the entire United States as two mass shootings took place at schools within days of each other. They were nothing but a blurb; a quick mention between the popular sex scandals of politicians and actors.
As I lay down to sleep, I found myself searching for information about a photo of a man who shot 15 in California?
The news story broke more than 12 hours beforehand, and this was the first I was hearing of it. I’m trained as a journalist. The news is pretty much running in the background during my entire day, its my passion… it’s what I do.
How could it be that I missed this? A “terrorist,” for all intents and purposes, shot-up a small town in California and I missed it completely?
Not likely.
Now, first I would like to mention the trendy definition of “terrorist,” seems to have “political statement” attached to it. Which conveniently leaves out those Christian extremists, the mentally unstable and any “white” American even if they do have a political agenda.
TERRORIST: ter·ror·ist
a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
“four commercial aircraft were hijacked by terrorists”
unlawfully using violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
“a terrorist organization”
Don’t you think anyone who “causes terror,” is in fact a terrorist? White dudes with a “mental illness,” are not being called home-grown terrorists, which blows my mind. But I digress…
I wrote a post in 2014, it was about a day just like yesterday, you can read it HERE. I had been putzing around the house with the news running in the background, just like yesterday. There was even a “black” serial killer creating havoc somewhere, just like we currently have in Tampa.
Nothing has changed, besides our willingness to accept the fact that we can’t do anything about it.
Those of us who want gun “control” are squashed like a bug by the lobbyists who brainwash the other 50 percent. And, those of us who live in a fear-filled world, fight for their right to carry a weapon, because they are the “good guy;” they are going to protect us from the boogeyman.
But there are problems with this ideology… clearly, as you can see from this parody of the “Good Guy with a Gun” philosophy.
Psychologically, we desensitize. Our bubbles become smaller, and our psyche tries to rationalize that we are powerless.
And, I sit here, as I did in 2014, writing… because this is my escape. This is my safe-place.
Nothing has changed besides a growing list of people who have died at the hands of senseless mass shootings.
No new gun laws have been passed. And, it will always be “too soon” to speak about, because new mass shootings happen so frequently.
But… lets keep those helpful “Thoughts and Prayers” coming, because they seem to be working miracles, eh?
We need to DO SOMETHING America!
A list of notable mass shootings in the U.S. since 2011
American mass shootings keep getting bloodier and bloodier, but gun control laws are rarely strengthened afterward
The mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas is officially the deadliest in modern American history. Unfortunately, though, it is also only one of many mass shootings that have scarred American life within the past few years.
Indeed, since the assassination attempt on a Democratic congresswoman in Arizona at the start of 2011, there have been 18 mass shootings in this country that captured national headlines.
1/8/2011 – Jared Lee Loughner, 22, killed 6 and wounded 11 others in Tucson, Ariz.
Loughner’s motive was an attempt to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona at a meet-and-greet she was holding.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
10/12/2011 – Scott Dekraai, 41, killed 8 people and wounded 1 other in Seal Beach, Calif.
Dekraai was upset over a custody dispute and decided to exact vengeance by going on a shooting rampage at the hair salon where his former wife worked.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
4/2/2012 – One L. Goh, 43, killed 7 people and wounded 1 other in Oakland, Calif.
Goh opened fire in a classroom at Oikos University, a small Christian college.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
7/20/2012 – James Holmes, 24, killed 12 people and wounded 58 others in Aurora, Colo.
Holmes entered a movie theater playing “The Dark Knight Rises” roughly half an hour after the screening had commenced and opened fire.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
8/5/2012 – Wade Michael Page, 40, killed 6 people and injured 3 others at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisc.
Page was an Army veteran and “psychological operations specialist” who opened fire in a Sikh Temple as part of his white supremacist agenda.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
9/28/2012 – Andrew Engeldinger, 36, killed 6 people and injured 2 others in Minneapolis, Minn.
Engeldinger opened fire at the offices of Accent Signage Systems and began shooting after having been fired from his job there.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
10/21/2012 – Radcliffe Haughton, 45, killed 3 people and injured 4 others in Brookfield, Wis.
The former Marine opened fire at the Azana Salon and Spa, where his estranged wife was employed.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
12/14/2012 – Adam Lanza, 20, killed 27 people and injured 1 other in Newtown, Conn.
The shooter murdered 20 first-graders and 6 adults during his infamous rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
President Barack Obama called for stricter federal gun control laws after the incident, but no new federal gun laws were passed.
9/16/2013 – Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people and injured 3 others in Washington, D.C.
Alexis was a Navy contractor and former Navy enlisted man whose extensive disciplinary record did not thwart him when he tried to purchase a rifle. He later shot up the Washington Navy Yard.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
4/2/2014 – Ivan Lopez, 34, killed 3 people and injured 16 others in Fort Hood, Texas.
Lopez, like Alexis, had a problematic past in his military background and engaged in a shooting at Fort Hood after a request for time off was denied.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
5/23/2014 – Elliot Rodger, 22, killed 6 people and wounded 7 others in Isla Vista, Calif.
Rodger went on a rampage near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara after complaining about girls not dating him.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
6/18/2015 – Dylann Roof, 21, killed 9 people in Charleston, SC
Roof was motivated by a white supremacist ideology to open fire in a predominantly African-American church in Charleston, S.C.
The FBI later admitted that Roof should not have been allowed to buy a gun, but he slipped through the cracks.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
7/16/2015 – Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, killed 5 people and wounded 3 others in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Abdulazeez shot up both a military recruiting center and a Navy-Marine training facility before being killed by law enforcement officials.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
10/1/2015 – Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer, 26, killed 9 people and injured 9 others in Roseburg, Ore.
Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer was described by law enforcement as someone with white supremacist and anti-religion opinions and speculated that these views motivated him to shoot up Umpqua Community College.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
11/29/2015 – Robert Lewis Dear, 57, killed 3 people and injured 9 others in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Dear opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, with his wife speculatingthat the religious Dear did so because of his opposition to abortion rights.
No new federal gun laws were passed.
12/2/2015 – Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, 28 and 29, killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in San Bernardino, Calif.
Farook and Malik committed the shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, making national headlines.
No new federal gun laws were passed, although Donald Trump (then still seeking the Republican presidential nomination) used the shooting as an opportunity to denounce political correctness.
6/12/2016 – Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people and injured 58 others in Orlando, Fla.
Mateen engaged in a mass shooting at a popular gay night club called Pulse. Until Sunday, this was the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
No new federal gun laws were passed, despite President Barack Obama urging Congress to either enact or renew laws that would ban the possession of assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Mateen committed his attack with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
10/1/2017 – Stephen Paddock, 64, killed at least 58 people and injured at least 515 others in Las Vegas, Nev.
It is unclear what type of weapon Paddock used during the mass shooting, although the sheriff said police found at least 10 rifles in his room. If it turns out that Paddock did use a semiautomatic weapon, however, it could raise concerns for legislation banning them.
…And, the list grows daily. But we aren’t listening anymore.
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