By: Leena Sen
The October 2, 2015 Umqua Community College shooting left nine people killed and seven injured, with yet another set of families forced to cope with the repercussions of gun violence in America.
The 26 year-old gunman began firing at UCC and was killed in a police shootout.
The gunman is purported to have asked his victims to state their religion before firing.
Just hours after the attack, President Obama issued a speech that has become all too common in a nation where gun violence rages on. “We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these mass shootings every few months,” the president said. “We are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people.”
He demanded stricter gun laws, emphasizing the idea that the only way to truly end this as an issue is to politicize gun control.
President Obama also challenged news sources to run some numbers. He asked news sources to put the deaths from gun violence side by side with deaths from terrorist attacks, another greatly feared aspect of any American’s life.
News sources took the challenge. Over 10,000 Americans are killed each year by gun violence, including suicides while a much smaller number of Americans have been killed from terrorist attacks since 9/11. If legislation could practically eliminate the terrorist attack-related deaths in this country over the past 14 years, the number of gun-related deaths- suicides in particular- could be easily preventable if even minor steps are taken towards gun control. Countries like the UK and Australia have shown that effective legislation is possible and can have very positive effects in decreasing gun-related violence.
In a country where mass shootings happen all too often, reactions to these tragedies are becoming almost routine. For UCC families, they are yet another addition to the endless number of lives of those affected by gun-related violence each year.
