Hannah Bruce

Despite numerous tragedies, the American Government still hasn’t officially passed any gun control laws.

It’s terrifying how America is dealing with a gun violence epidemic, every time there’s a shooting, we send out our thoughts and prayers, and then nothing changes. It seems as though Americans are just getting used to it. After Sandy Hook, when 20 kids and six adults were killed, the American government didn’t do anything. Meanwhile, the UK managed to ban most guns after just one terrible shooting. Why can’t America learn from that?

Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 more than 338,000 students have experienced gun violence in school and everyday life. American citizens – families, and friends who have cried for their lost loved ones who died with a gun aimed at their heads and have received no justice for the lives that they lost.

No other first world country has mass shootings as often as America does, in America it’s completely normal to have a deadly mass shooting every single day, and despite this, it seems that Americans are far more idiotically concerned with banning things such as books that might offend people rather than assault rifles that kill hundreds of people a day.

In the 2023 – 2024 school year, 4,240 different book titles were challenged or banned across the U.S. America clearly has a problem when it comes to focusing on the bigger picture, children aren’t dying in schools because a book hurts their feelings – they’re dying in schools because of the incompetence of the American government when it comes to taking necessary action to keep people safe.

It’s like American citizens have become far too comfortable with perpetuating violence against one another. Recently Elon Musk made a threatening “joke” tweet in response to the suspected second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, asking why no one has tried to assassinate Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden.

Why is Elon Musk – one of the most famous people in the world – allowed to incite violence against people publicly? Gun violence as an issue cannot be solved if the American government allows public figures like Elon Musk – who has an enormous public platform, to advocate for violence against other people with little to no consequences.

Situations like these only further the question: why are Americans so comfortable inciting violence on one another and acting it out? The answer could lie in the entitlement and desensitization Americans have experienced when it comes to mass shootings and the death tolls that come with them. Now most school shootings don’t make it to large news platforms, they just stay local and end up being forgotten like the last one.

American public officials seem more concerned with pushing their pro-gun ideologies than protecting the lives of American citizens. When the Manchin-Toomey Amendment – a law that would require background checks on all gun sales, came around in 2013, 46 of the senators who denied it had also received campaign contributions from the NRA. American politicians are failing the American people – they would rather sit on the sidelines while being not so quietly funded by pro-gun organizations like the NRA.

Even when some government officials try to promote legislation to impose stricter gun control laws, the bill is almost always called into question by other officials. In June of 2021, Joe Biden signed a bill that would promote safety in schools, improve mental health support, and restrict gun access to those with criminal records of domestic abuse called bipartisan gun safety bill, however in a 2020 Supreme Court ruling, these aspects of this bill were called into question. This bill is the largest bill focusing on gun control in 30 years, and thankfully as of September 2024 this bill is still active, however, there is still a desperate need for more legislation to be put into action.