The frequent sound of gunshots has caused unbearable pain in the hearts of Americans
At least 39 school shootings have occurred this year
□ Wang Yitong
The shadow of the Buffalo mass shooting has not yet dissipated, and gunfire rang again at an elementary school in Texas, USA.
On May 24, local time, a shooting occurred at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, southern Texas, killing 21 people, including 19 children.
The continuing mass shootings have led to strong anger among the American people for the long-term failure of the government to address the widespread problem of gun violence, and the distrust of the Biden administration has also increased significantly.
'This only happens in America'
The frequent gunshots on campus have become the most unbearable pain in the hearts of Americans.
“When parents drop their children off at school, they have every reason to expect that when the day is over, they will be able to pick up their children. However, some families are now in grief and they can no longer be picked up from school. his own children," Texas Governor Abbott said in a statement after the shooting at Rob Elementary School.
The shooting at Rob Elementary School is at least the 30th school shooting at kindergarten and elementary and middle schools in the United States in 2022.
If college shootings are included, it's at least the 39th.
The Rob Elementary School shooting was not the worst in U.S. history.
In 2012, a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut killed 20 children and six adults.
Nicole lost her son in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
She said she could fully understand the pain of the victims' parents and called on the government to take real action on gun control.
Neal, whose son was also killed in the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, felt "completely and completely defeated" by the re-shooting on the primary school campus.
"I have a hunch that these kinds of tragedies will happen to us again and again." Neal said he felt like a nightmare again when he saw reports of the shooting.
Some American media pointed out that the school shooting is the biggest fear and the worst nightmare of every student's parent in the United States.
In April 2022, the New England Journal of Medicine published an analysis of the leading causes of death in children and adolescents in the United States.
The article shows that in 2020, more than 4,300 American children and teens died from gun violence.
That same year, 3,900 children and teens died in car crashes in the United States.
This is the first time since statistics began in 1999 that gun violence has become the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States.
“This only happens in America, not anywhere else. Kids who go to school elsewhere don’t think they might get shot when they go to school. Our kids live in fear every time they step into the classroom because they think they’re going to be The next goal. What are we doing?" Senator Chris Murphy asked.
Microcosm of U.S. Shooting Violence Surge
The Rob Elementary School shooting shocked the international community.
"(The Secretary-General) is deeply shocked and saddened by the heinous mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It is especially heartbreaking," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement on the shooting through his spokesman. Crushingly, most of the victims were children."
In fact, the high incidence of gun violence in schools is a microcosm of the surge in gun violence in the United States over the past two years.
As of May 24, there have been at least 212 mass shootings in the United States this year, an average of nearly 1.5 per day, according to the website of the US non-profit organization Gun Violence Archives.
If these levels continue, the number of mass shootings in the United States in all of 2022 will likely match the level of 611 mass shootings in 2020.
The US political news website Politico said that "mass shootings have become a 'copy-and-paste tragedy' in the United States."
The proliferation of guns has always been considered one of the main reasons for the frequent occurrence of gun violence in the United States, and this situation has become more serious after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic.
A 2021 study by the American Center for Crime Prevention Research shows that the number of people in the United States with state-issued concealed-carry firearm licenses has soared during the epidemic: The number of such licenses in the United States surged to 21.52 million in 2020, a higher number than 2016. Annual growth of 48%; an increase of 2 million people or 10.5% over the same period in 2019, setting a new historical record for year-on-year growth.
As a rare country in the world with "more guns than people", the United States has long been trapped in a vicious circle of "more guns, more unsafe".
Politicians say the same thing
On the evening of May 24, local time, US President Biden delivered a speech on the Rob Elementary School shooting, calling for new restrictions on gun management, "We must act."
In his speech, he emphasized that it was time to stand up to the gun lobby and offered his condolences to the families of the shooting victims.
Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle also said they were "sad and angry" for the victims' families.
Obama noted that now is the time to take action on gun control, "of any kind."
In the face of tragedy, the words of politicians are always the same.
"Action must be taken", but where is the action?
Biden's remarks did not satisfy the American people and gun control organizations who advocate gun safety.
Cameron Kaski, a survivor of the 2018 Florida high school mass shooting, said that while Biden showed empathy that mass shootings were bad, his speech gave gun-safety Americans feel disappointed.
"The word 'executive order' is waiting across the country, and all we hear is thoughts and prayers."
For more than 20 years, the federal government has failed to introduce a gun control bill.
The U.S. government and legislature can speak loudly about tackling gun control, but have not taken any concrete steps.
Why is the shooting violence in the United States so long and dead?
One of the important reasons is the endless partisanship.
Some commentators pointed out that the issue of gun violence in the United States is like a tug-of-war game, and the side that lets go first will "fall badly."
After long-term development, the American gun industry has formed a huge industrial chain. The interest groups behind it influence American politics and public opinion through political donations, election donations, lobbying, etc., thus forming a "military-industrial complex" composed of politicians and military-industrial interest groups. , blocking gun control legislation.
Take the National Rifle Association, which has more than 5 million members and spent more than $29 million in 2020 alone to fund federal elections.
The Democratic and Republican parties in the United States have sharp contradictions on the issue of gun control, which makes gun control legislation at the federal level in the United States more difficult.
On April 11, the Biden administration introduced new regulations to try to regulate unnumbered and hard-to-trace “ghost guns”, but it was immediately criticized by gun advocates, and some anti-gun control organizations said they would file lawsuits for the new regulations.
ABC News published an article on May 25, local time, that the mass shooting tragedy in the United States and its follow-up were almost "predictable and formulaic."
According to a report from the Giffords Law Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence, nearly every American will know at least one gun violence victim in their lifetime, who has been directly or indirectly involved in various shootings.
There are also American media saying that this is "one of the most terrifying moments" the United States has experienced.
But what is even more frightening is that due to the polarization of politics and the inaction of politicians, such shootings will most likely be repeated in the future, and people may fall into helplessness and helplessness again after shock and grief.