This morning, in the hospital where I work three college students - three young adults, ... no, three children basically, they are the same age as my oldest child, all lie in a hospital bed with gunshot wounds. A fourth student, a young adult, someone's child, is now in the morgue because our country can't get its act together when it comes to guns and violence.
In yet another school shooting; this one at my alma mater – Northern Arizona University, outside a dorm that I drive past every day on my way to work, 4 students were shot.
This was not a premeditated act.
This was not a gun free zone, as on the NAU campus guns are allowed in a locked case in your car.
This was not a case where better mental health care would have identified the shooter.
This is a case where the shooter was just yesterday a potential good guy with a gun. He was presumably a responsible gun owner.
This is another case like in Oregon where having guns on campus could not have prevented the violence, in fact in this case it turned a stupid student, possibly fraternity based argument into a shooting that ended one life, and will forever change four others, with out even mentioning the rest of the student body.
I firmly believe that there are many, many community actions, social and economic policy changes, jobs bills, healthcare improvements and other non gun specific changes that we can address in this country that will help reduce gun violence, and all violence in potentially significant numbers. But it is inarguable that the prevalence of guns, the easy access to guns, the acceptance of guns as a cultural icon, has lead to the willingness to use a gun to solve our problems. Whether a gun is used to take one's own life, to intentionally take another's life, or is used in negligence or by accident to take someone's life. Enough is enough, and we are well beyond that point. We have reached insanity.
This year or next the number of gun related deaths will surpass the number of automobile related deaths in this country for the first time. We have been working for decades with safety engineering in cars, with traffic engineering, with laws that aren't perfect, and with social awareness efforts to reduce the number of automobile related deaths. And yet organizations that even attempt to do scientific research on gun violence can lose their federal funding. We are insane.
In some communities and states it is illegal to use your cell phone while driving your car, even in a hands free mode, because of the relationship between cell phone use and automobile accidents and deaths. Yet the number of shootings due to road rage and carrying a gun in cars is unaddressed. We are insane.
This year we have averaged at least one school shooting per day. At least one child, one young adult, one adult trying to improve their lives is shot every day in this country. And there are people who argue that we don't have enough guns. That the problem lies in this or that cause, but certainly not with the number of people carrying guns, nor in the fact that everyday somewhere multiple people are yelling that we need to carry more guns to protect ourselves, that we need to reduce the number of "gun free zones" so that we can be safer, that "good guys with guns" can protect us. Last night a heretofore good guy with a gun shot four fellow students. I guess he won his argument. We are insane.
Last fall a nine people returned to the United States with Ebola. Two nurses who cared for these patients contracted the disease. A total of two people died. Our media went nuts, our nation came close to a panic, laws were introduced, travel was shut down, the world... almost ended.
Eleven college students have been killed in nine days, twelve more were shot and wounded. We will argue, we will rant, we will weep silently, and nothing will change. And soon another child will be shot. We are insane.