This article does not represent the views of Her Campus FSU.
Yet another public school in the United States was tainted on Wednesday, Feb. 14 by the misfortune of an automatic weapon that was in the wrong hands. 17 innocent students and faculty members lost their lives in the mass shooting conducted by former student Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Sorrow and anguish have swept the nation, leaving many at a loss for words as they add this event to the growing list.
Public uproar across all realms of the internet is continuing to divide the nation rather than unite it during this time. People have opposing views regarding gun legislation and compromising methods of controlling the threat posed by the mentally ill “terrorists” at stake.
I do not want to politicize the tragic event because there has been enough of that everywhere – there is a bigger picture with which we have no choice but to agree because it is a brutal truth, and that is that the United States is no longer a first-place leader for anything other than its collective number of mass shootings per year.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the journal Health Affairs deemed “the U.S. the most dangerous of wealthy nations for a child to be born in to.” While this statement was released Monday before the Parkland shooting and comprises some unrelated factors such as infant mortality rate, the article included the fact that the second-leading cause of adolescent deaths was assault via rifle and that this risk “was 82 times higher in America than in the peer nations” such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and several others that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This statistic has also been presented by other publications such as the New York Times and Minn Post.
A mass shooting in its simplest terms is four or more people shot in one event. The Parkland shooting is considered among the 10 most fatal mass shootings in our history since 1949. According to The Guardian, there have been 1,624 shootings in the past 1,870 days, which equates to roughly five years and two months. Just within the week of the Parkland shooting alone, there were shootings in Detroit, MI, Paintsville, KY and New Orleans, LA as well. 11 victims died among these three and six were injured. However, national news has only shed light on the most significant of shootings, specifically those in schools and nightclubs, while they actually occur several times per week; they just occur too frequently for press coverage and sanity of fellow citizens.
Courtesy: Los Angeles Times
The following timeline presents a recap of deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history thus far, according to CNN:
Sept. 5, 1949 – 13 killed on 32 Street in Camden, NJ.
Aug. 1, 1966 – 18 killed at a University of Texas tower in Austin, TX.
Aug. 20, 1982 – 8 killed at a machine shop in Miami, FL.
Sept. 25, 1982 – 13 killed in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
Feb. 18, 1983 – 13 killed in the Wah Mee social club in Seattle, WA.
July 18, 1984 – 21 killed at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, CA.
Aug. 20, 1986 – 14 killed in Edmond, OK.
Sept. 14, 1989 – 8 killed at Standard Gravure Corporation in Kentucky.
Aug. 10, 1991 – 9 killed in a Buddhist temple in Waddell, AZ.
Oct. 16, 1991 – 23 killed in a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, TX.
July 1, 1993 – 8 killed in a San Francisco law office.
April 20, 1999 – 13 killed in Columbine High School in Littleton, CO.
July 29, 1999 – 12 killed in brokerage houses in Atlanta, GA.
Mar. 21, 2005 – 9 killed at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, MN.
April 16, 2007 – 32 killed at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.
Dec. 5, 2007 – 8 killed in an area mall in Omaha, NE.
Mar. 10, 2009 – 10 killed in Alabama, which included the criminal’s family members.
Mar. 29, 2009 – 8 killed in a nursing home in Carthage, NC.
April 3, 2009 – 13 killed at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, NY.
Nov. 5, 2009 – 13 killed in Fort Good, TX.
Jan. 29, 2010 – 8 killed in a home in Appomattox, VA.
Aug. 3, 2010 – 8 killed at Hartford Distributors in Manchester, CT.
Oct. 12, 2011 – 8 killed at the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach, CA.
July 20, 2012 – 12 killed and 58 were wounded at a movie theatre in Aurora, CO for a Batman screening.
Dec. 14, 2012 – 27 killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
Sept. 16, 2013 – 12 killed inside the Washington Navy Yard.
June 17, 2015 – 9 killed inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC.
Oct. 1, 2015 – 9 killed at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR.
Dec. 2, 2015 – 14 killed at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA.
June 12, 2016 – 49 killed in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL.
Nov. 5, 2017 – 25 and an unborn child killed in a church in Sutherland, Springs, TX.
Oct. 1, 2017 – 58 killed at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV.
Feb. 14, 2018 – 17 killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.
The list continues to grow but the fight is not over.