I remember in High school we had an assembly where members of Rachel's Challenge told us the story of Columbine (this is a charity based on the life & poetry of Rachel Scott who was one of the students killed in the Columbine massacre). We as young students, learned in an intimate way about this historic event & how it impacted the lives of the families & surrounding community. It seemed important to memorialize Columbine. Each of us students left the assembly with a sense of urgency - a mixed with a twinge bit of disbelief. At the time The Columbine massacre seemed distant & far off... A sort of holocaust-esque event, not directly affecting our lives - but important for people to know about... Educated about... So that it would never again happen in history... We were naive. I think I was about 14 or 15...
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| Photo by Edwin Andrade |
Now I am 26 & while I have been living in India for the past 9 months I have made the startling realization that I have become desensitized towards mass/school shootings... (As a side note I do not know what the categorical difference would be aside from one taking place at a school.) I don't have a solution for them at the present moment, but wanted to just write this to vent & maybe start a larger conversation with people. However before continuing. I do consider my personal desensitization towards mass/school shootings a problem/bad.
I don't know how to keep track of all the mass/school shootings... So I just don't. This is a conscious decision on my part - perhaps a cop out on my behalf... But I doubt I am alone in this. At least with hurricanes or snowstorms we can differentiate them by the years in which they occur... I believe in 2018 this is still possible... But it probably has to do more with mass/school shootings are so geographically diverse because the frequency is only increasing.
The easiest example in regards to school shootings frequency would be that if I told someone that I knew someone who was attending Virginia Tech when the shooting happened (I do/did not to my best knowledge). The first question they might ask would be which Virginia Tech shooting are you talking about?
I am not qualified to write legislation or know the intricacies of policy. I write this post with the sole intention of starting a conversation. I do not write about my desensitization towards mass/school shootings proudly, I just know it to be true in the same way my name is Tim.
In the more than 20 yrs since Columbine mass/school shootings have become a part of American culture. We should be disgusted by this, as it is an embarrassment to a country I love dearly. To put it into perspective for the past few years there have been more mass/school shootings (combining the figures. data from https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data/) than regular season NFL games (256). Conveniently enough you do not have to wait until Sunday/Monday/Thursday to get caught up on the most recent mass/school shooting in America.
I do not know anyone who has lost their lives in a mass/school just yet. I am grateful for being lucky in this way, yes luck is the best way to describe it. I am sure that many people reading this know someone who has lost a loved one to mass/school shootings. A tragic human phenomenon is that something does not become real until it personally affects people. Even though I am desensitized, I consider the issue very real & in need to fixing in as comprehensive way possible.
As a final note, thank you for reading. Let's now begin a conversation that can create some real change. When I was writing this I misspelled Columbine - I did not realize there was a "U" in the word. The spellchecker I use was kind enough to correct me due to the historical understanding // significance of the event. I say this because I have a fear of in the future spellchecker not keeping up to date with Sandy Hook, New Town, BlacksBurg, Sutherland Springs, and San Bernardino. But that is up to us rather than spellchecker. So let's do something about it.
-Tim O'Sullivan
I don't know how to keep track of all the mass/school shootings... So I just don't. This is a conscious decision on my part - perhaps a cop out on my behalf... But I doubt I am alone in this. At least with hurricanes or snowstorms we can differentiate them by the years in which they occur... I believe in 2018 this is still possible... But it probably has to do more with mass/school shootings are so geographically diverse because the frequency is only increasing.
The easiest example in regards to school shootings frequency would be that if I told someone that I knew someone who was attending Virginia Tech when the shooting happened (I do/did not to my best knowledge). The first question they might ask would be which Virginia Tech shooting are you talking about?
I am not qualified to write legislation or know the intricacies of policy. I write this post with the sole intention of starting a conversation. I do not write about my desensitization towards mass/school shootings proudly, I just know it to be true in the same way my name is Tim.
In the more than 20 yrs since Columbine mass/school shootings have become a part of American culture. We should be disgusted by this, as it is an embarrassment to a country I love dearly. To put it into perspective for the past few years there have been more mass/school shootings (combining the figures. data from https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data/) than regular season NFL games (256). Conveniently enough you do not have to wait until Sunday/Monday/Thursday to get caught up on the most recent mass/school shooting in America.I do not know anyone who has lost their lives in a mass/school just yet. I am grateful for being lucky in this way, yes luck is the best way to describe it. I am sure that many people reading this know someone who has lost a loved one to mass/school shootings. A tragic human phenomenon is that something does not become real until it personally affects people. Even though I am desensitized, I consider the issue very real & in need to fixing in as comprehensive way possible.
As a final note, thank you for reading. Let's now begin a conversation that can create some real change. When I was writing this I misspelled Columbine - I did not realize there was a "U" in the word. The spellchecker I use was kind enough to correct me due to the historical understanding // significance of the event. I say this because I have a fear of in the future spellchecker not keeping up to date with Sandy Hook, New Town, BlacksBurg, Sutherland Springs, and San Bernardino. But that is up to us rather than spellchecker. So let's do something about it.
-Tim O'Sullivan
Fuck man you're right. I'm sure there's been multiple in-between when you posted that and when I commented this. I don't have the faintest what you or I can do about them but it's awful that they are getting so commonplace that people don't seem as invested in finding a way to stop them.
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