Mass shootings didn't stop after Texas. They're all around us. Do you feel safe?
Collectively, I think we're still grieving what happened in Texas last week. We can't lose 19 children and two teachers in one shooting and not mourn for months.
We can't see images of those 19 caskets without wondering how things got so bad in this country.
But have you noticed how much death happened after Texas? Did you see in your social media feeds and news postings that we had a string of mass shootings after all those children were killed?
More important, did you even consider that those shootings happened at places where we all live and work and likely feel safe? And that was just one weekend.
There was a mass shooting on Wednesday in a medical facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where four people were killed. Another happened on Monday during a party in South Carolina where 10 people were shot. Another happened the same day in Michigan where six people were shot and one was killed at a club.
What has happened since Texas?
Since the slaughter at Robb Elementary in Uvalde on May 24, there have been 20 mass shooting incidents in America. That is according to how the Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting – an incident where at least four victims are shot, either injured or killed. That number doesn't include the shooter.
It also means that since Texas, nearly 90 people have been injured and more than 15 people have been killed in 20 shooting incidents. And that’s just adding up the numbers from the mass shooting category.
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Gun violence is everywhere, and the idea that there are public places left to feel safe is one that is quickly becoming obsolete. Putting aside school campuses, which lost their innocence years ago, where can we honestly say our families and loved ones can feel safe from gun violence?
Where do we draw the line for safety?
A house party. A club. A park. A medical facility. A graduation party. A downtown block. All locations of shootings that injured multiple people – and that was just last weekend.
In the weeks, months and years before that, we've seen mass shootings in grocery stores, churches and mosques and synagogues, movie theaters, workplaces, music festivals. And schools. So many schools.
In other words, mass shootings all around us.
Why do mass shootings keep happening? Because this is what we've allowed America to become.
It also has to be said that while gun violence in America is on the rise in recent years, including gun deaths, we’re still not at the level we saw in the early 1990s or, for that matter, the '70s or '80s,. according to the Pew Research Center.
This all just feels different, and I have some ideas as to why.
Our new reality of violence and imagery
Having lived through the bulk of those decades, I can say that I don’t remember this level of anxiety over gun violence. I think it’s because of mass shootings. The Gun Violence Archive says we had 272 mass shootings in 2014 and reached 610 in 2020.
We’ve also lived through the advent and rise of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. Put all that together and we have an increase in major shooting events being covered and talked about relentlessly.
Chicago has a gun problem. There are no parallels to Texas.
The end result is a culture of gun violence that is both happening at a tragic pace and being on public display all the time. We are being overrun with both gun violence and the images of that violence as we try to go about our lives in the very places this violence is happening.
Given the increase in mass shootings, the overall increase in gun violence in recent years, the inaction of our nation’s leaders in addressing this scourge and the reality of it being in our face all the time, where do you feel safe?
Because after the weekend this country just had, I don't see many safe places left.
Louie Villalobos is a member of the Editorial Board. Reach him on Twitter: @lvillalobos
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mass shootings and guns are at work, church, home, school. Is it safe?
