Mass Shootings

Patrick D'Arinzo
PrideTime Reporter

There have been many mass shootings in the U.S. for consecutive months and they are seemingly becoming harder to prevent. When it comes to general mass shootings in the U.S., there are deaths of 4 or more people not, including the shooter. For example, the shooting at the First Baptist Church. The First Bapist Church shooting fatally killed 27 people and wounded 20 others in Sutherland Spring, Texas. The shooter was named Devin Patrick Kelly who was prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms and ammunition due to a domestic violence conviction in a court-martial while in the United States Air Force. About 33,000 people are fatally shot in the U.S. each year and about two thirds of these deaths are suicides. Another third of these deaths are homicides, which have been steadily declining for decades. In 2015, around 13,286 people were killed in the U.S. by firearms in non-suicide related deaths. In 1993, that rate was at 18,253. In most of the years in between, part of a decades-long trend of declining gun violence, mass shooting victims accounted for less than one-tenth of a percent of shooting victims.

The worst mass shootings in which you can argue are school shootings. Rampage school shootings are a type of school shooting where no single or specific individual is targeted by the shooter. Although school shootings occur worldwide, the United States has been the scene of the vast majority of the attacks that have to do with the school being targeted, especially since the late 20th century. Most school shooters have a motive that we usually never find out because they usually take their own life.

Another horrible mass shooting target is concerts or overall “big events”. In the terrorist mind, he wants to target events which hold many people at a time, he wants as many people dead as possible. The number of public mass shootings have increased substantially, although there has been an approximately 50% decrease in firearm homicides in the nation overall since 1993. Not all mass shootings like these can result in many deaths because of the quickness of emergency and possibly even stopping a shooter from doing what he is about to do.

Mass shootings are a terrible, tragic event in this world. So many innocent people are dying because someone can’t control their actions or more often than not, because people are careless with their words. We as a country have to stop giving people motives and stop these horrific events happening year after year.