Trigger Warning: this column discusses themes of gun violence.
Happy week 10, Pioneers! We hope you were able to take some sort of pause on this year’s Pioneer Pause and that you all had a safe and fun Halloweekend. We also hope you enjoyed our Halloween-themed graphics for this week’s issue.
This week’s Globe’s Point is going to be a little heavy, as we will be discussing how Friday marked five years since the synagogue shooting in Squirrel Hill and how another mass shooting occurred last Wednesday in Maine.
What can we say that has not already been said 1,000 times in this column before? When will enough truly be enough? How many more innocent lives have to be taken away for action to be taken? The U.S. has had at least 565 mass shootings so far this year, totaling 35,453 deaths and 68,487 injuries, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This averages out to almost two mass shootings a day. How is this at all acceptable?
Also according to the Gun Violence Archive, firearms are the leading cause of death. About 120 Americans die per day from gun violence, including homicides and suicides. According to the latest available analysis of data from 2015 to 2019, the U.S. gun homicide rate was 26 times that of other high-income countries, and its gun suicide rate was nearly 12 times higher.
As an editorial board and as humans, we are so sick and tired of reporting on gun violence and seeing no action from legislators. Since the 10/27 shooting in 2018, there has not been much progress. Pennsylvania last enacted tighter laws for firearms in 2018, passing a measure making it easier to take guns away from domestic abusers, a decision that was opposed by gun rights groups. Several state bills requiring stricter background checks introduced at the beginning of this year have been sitting at a standstill for months. Why are they not at the top of the priority list when this is still a pressing issue?
We need stricter gun laws now. Continued inaction on passing laws will only cause more innocent lives to be lost. We should not have to keep pleading for the end of mass shootings in 2023 and beyond.
