Phoebe Barr ’19: Dystopian literature is very popular. From The Hunger Games to The Giver to 1984, they are well-loved stories with chilling themes. Horrific things, or what we would consider horrific, are considered normal in these societies. We read about how children are picked from bowls of names and made to kill each other in televised arenas. We read about how old men and women, troublesome toddlers, are killed, without a second thought, by people whose job it is to do this every day and to lie about it to the world. We shudder at the thought of where civilization could be driven, and feel relieved that we are not yet so cold-blooded, so devoid of conscience, that we would allow such a thing to happen.
But when something dystopian comes into our society, it will not announce itself. It will sneak in, and we will be too busy fighting for other causes and shouting out other useless mantras to pay it any mind until it has already become normal. It will become something we bear because something else is more important to us.
And this has already happened.
I am referring to the issue of gun violence. Let me throw out some numbers right away. According to a study done by the Mother Jones magazine and corroborated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the San Bernadino mass shooting was the fourth mass shooting, or instance in which four or more people were shot and killed, in 2015. Their article states: “Since 1982, there have been at least 73 public mass shootings across the country… Thirty-six of these mass shootings have occurred since 2006. Seven of them took place in 2012 alone…”
Photo Courtesy of Jenna Cooley ’16
But let us look at a wider category. This tracking of “mass shootings” documents only the instances in which four or more people are killed. So, how many instances of gun violence have there been overall? The Mass Shooting tracker, a site which compiled all known instances of gun violence from journalistic sources in 2015, has recorded 330 “mass shootings” using a broader definition in which several people are shot, but no one is necessarily killed. Although these instances are not as massive as the four major mass shootings, they give us a general sense of how prevalent the problem is. There were almost as many instances of gun violence in 2015 as days. In the four mass shooting that occurred in 2015, nearly all of the weapons used were documented to have been purchased legally. Either way, anyone can get their hands on a gun, regardless of the fact that background checks are sometimes required, anyone can buy a gun at a gun show or online.
So, why have we still not restricted gun use in this country? Well, gun advocates will remind us that the right to bear arms is clearly stated in the second amendment of our Constitution. However, I invite you to read the whole text of the Second Amendment: ”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
John Paul Stevens, a former Justice, wrote, “the Framer’s single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee ‘to keep and bear arms’ was on military use of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias.” At the time of the American Revolutionary War, the United States did not have a national army, but rather fought in state militias. Because of this, all citizens needed to arm themselves in case of an attack. This is obviously not true today. We are a well-protected country with a national army to protect us from invaders. And, really, even if this were not the case, and the founding fathers really and truly believed each citizen should have the right to have a gun just because, can we honestly say, looking at the world around us, that this law has done more good than harm? Can we really point to enough episodes in which we were thankful for owning a gun to make up for the mass shootings plaguing our country? For that matter, is there any number of instances in which we were thankful for owning a gun that really could make up for the mass shootings plaguing our country?
Gun advocates counter this question with the old saying that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This saying has obvious flaws. Never mind the obvious fact that the average person is unable to perform mass murder with their bare hands. Even if we concede the modification, “people kill people using guns,” this does not really get to the heart of the issue. People are implying that a gun is a completely neutral tool and killing people is some sort of a twisting of its purpose by bad people – analogous to cars which are dangerous when driven by drunk people. This is simply and obviously false. Guns are designed to shoot people. That is their express purpose. Such an analogy between guns and cars would only work if cars were designed for the purpose of getting in crashes. These types of guns have no other purpose but to kill and destroy. This saying also displays a spirit of profound laziness. It implies that there is nothing we can do to stop mass murder. That is completely out of our hands. To those who feel that way, I would remind you that this is the only developed nation where this happens regularly. As President Barack Obama said, “The United States of America is not the only country on Earth with violent or dangerous people. We are not inherently more prone to violence — but we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency.” However, just as before, we have grown used to it. We don’t want to stand up for change because it takes too long and is too messy. We are content to simply repeat that it’s out of our hands.
We have spent our lungs shouting “the second amendment” and have no room to gasp in horror as another school is assaulted, another crowd of innocent people shot at. We are too busy fighting for other things. It honestly seems as though our Constitutional right to own deadly weapons has become more important to us than the lives of children.
We have been in our share of lockdown drills. we have heard, time and time again, announcements over the loudspeaker instructing us to quietly put my books away, stop taking notes, and instead pile into a closet or under a teacher’s desk. The teacher has shushed us and forced us to sit crammed together, in silence, waiting. Every time, I have pondered how easy it would be for this to be a real situation. For me to really be sitting here wedged underneath a desk as if awaiting a nuclear bomb in the Cold War era, silent, hoping and praying that whoever has burst into my school with a gun will not find us. That my friends, my teachers, will not be shot. That by some miracle this time the mantra will be correct, and “guns will not kill people.” And these drills are conducted just as if they were fire drills. As if this were a completely normal, plausible, even inevitable situation. I am not criticizing the administration, of course, for conducting these drills. I am only heartbroken that they are necessary. Does this not seem dystopian to you?
You have probably heard this quote on the issue of gun violence: “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” And yes, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t inclined to agree. Even as I write this, I feel that the phrase “the murder of children” will not really carry enough weight to make people take notice. Because it has become normal. And that is appalling.
But I am still more optimistic than that. I don’t believe that we are all really such fools as to believe that these sorts of atrocities are unpreventable and therefore endurable. I don’t believe – I can’t believe – that we will sit back and allow people to be murdered, and murdered, and murdered, and forgotten. That we will honestly bear the slaughter of innocent people in the name of some sort of twisted shout of “freedom.” Because is this the sort of thing you think the founding fathers fought to see? The murder of children? The normalization of mass shooting? The ruining of lives, the tearing apart of families, and the jaded response of those whom it did not directly affect that we will endure it because something else is more important to us?
Is that the sort of thing you think America ought to stand for?