In January 2016, this nation witnessed 22 people meet their end at the barrel of a gun. Overall, not a massive number. In fact, it’s even better than last year. January 2015 saw 38 people dead, but 2014’s January beats them all with only 14 causalities. February 2016 saw that January number rise to 62 lives taken and 142 people injured. There had been 34 mass shootings by Feb. 21 2015 , while we are up to our 42nd in 2016, according to a report by Washington Post.
So all in all, we’re off to a flying start. Deaths are down and incidents are down as well. Things are looking up then, from a certain perspective. But that simplifies the issues too much. Mass shootings only account for 1.5 of firearm related deaths. The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides. Gun suicides kill 92 people a day. That means that once every 72 hours, depressed and disillusioned Americans rack up a death toll greater than the Paris Terror Attacks. And the real problem is that no one wants to talk about this: in the House, in the Senate, in the home. We can’t solve a problem if we never discuss it, much less never craft a solution. Almost all the gun control measures proposed by Congress have no provision to deal with gun suicides.
And while homicides may get more attention, ultimately they have done less damage when compared to gun suicides. Still, gun homicides are a huge problem. As of 2012, more Americans died of gun homicide than in all of Americas’ wars combined. 1.4 million To 1.2 million, according to BBC.
Something must be done. We experience gun violence each day, in each city across our lands at a rate that dwarfs every other civilized nation. There are a million guesses why, and a million answers, but one fact stands true. The number of mass shootings continues to rise as 2016 peddles on, without fail unless we start the conversation to end them.