I recall where I was on October 1, 2017. It was another casual Sunday, the birds were chirping, and the sun’s rays sluggishly made their way over my bed. I had a headache from the night before (I had stayed up catching up on the new season of How to Get Away with Murder). I stayed in bed till around 11:00ish when the sun was directly over my covers, got up, and took a lengthy shower serenaded by the Jungle Rules album by French Montana. I had made my way downstairs into the kitchen to prepare a quick brunch for a friend who I hadn’t seen in over a year. We had become friends early on through our equal interest in ending poverty, becoming political actors, and changing the world. Our eternal optimism drew us together. We both spoke about our lives reviewing the year we had been apart while we indulged in the best coffee a seasoned keurig owner can prepare. We both laughed and smiled as he discussed the several sweethearts he had made during his freshman year at college on the East Coast. Later, in keeping with our old habits, we discussed the news and the various topics that had occurred in the last year. However, the topic of conversation found its way to be the Orlando night club shooting that had taken place a year earlier. We had both been personally affected as members of the LGBTQ community, and when we spoke of that night we were just grateful that it had been a year and that the occurrence was just an occurrence. It was naive to think so. October 2, 2017 was a day that I realize now is part of a horrifying pattern which seems to define the legacy of this generation. I woke up that Monday morning and saw the horrifying images being revolved on the news. Hundreds of terrfied people running in herds across the familiar streets of Las Vegas. We as a generation have become so numb to the violence which so consistently has plagued our society and hence our news and media. We may say we sympathize with the victims of countless crimes of gun violence but in addition to posting a photo on social media we may consider actually calling out our representatives for their actions. We the people have the power to impact the direction our representatives vote along both sides. And we need to realize what impact we would have if we are to create real action. There were 464,033 total gun deaths between 1999 and 2013: 270,237 suicides (58.2% of total deaths); 174,773 homicides (37.7%); and 9,983 unintentional deaths (2.2%). Guns were the leading cause of death by homicide (66.6% of all homicides) and by suicide (52.2% of all suicides). Firearms were the 12th leading cause of all deaths, representing 1.3% of total deaths topping liver disease, hypertension, and Parkinson’s disease, as well as deaths from fires, drowning, and machinery accidents. I believe both parties and the president should use the same ferocity that they have shown to condemn the terror attack in Manhattan to condemn the Las Vegas shooting and change America’s gun laws, but it is also up to us to call upon our representatives to follow through with the words of their constituents. And I understand, guns are a means of defense, however, of the 29,618,300 violent crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, 0.79% of victims (235,700) protected themselves with a threat of use or use of a firearm, the least-employed protective behavior. In 2010 there were 230 “justifiable homicides” in which a private citizen used a firearm to kill a felon, compared to 8,275 criminal gun homicides (or, 36 criminal homicides for every “justifiable homicide”). This is most likely because in several cases legally owned guns are frequently stolen by criminals, and repurposed for negligent purposes. I understand in times of great distress such as now we see new cases of violence taken by one person against another causes us to want to have the option to defend our families with the use of weapons, but the greatest strength is our democratic process. If we are to truly take it in hand our communities have the chance to become safer. We must not become numb to the fact that the world is ever changing, and now after all the carnage we must change for it.
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