Less than a week after six people were killed in the Kalamazoo shootings, three more people were killed and fourteen injured in Hesston, Kansas.
President Obama addressed the Kansas shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, requesting that the media cover incidents of mass shootings as a means of bringing more awareness to these kinds of issues. He stated, "Once a week we have these shootings, and it doesn't dominate the news. And that's got to change... We cannot become numb to this. As long as I hold this office I'm going to keep on bringing this up, even if it's not getting the attention that it should" (USA).
Obama plans to speak out on every mass shooting event and pledges to "politicize" the issue until Congress passes gun control legislation (USA).
Within hours of the Kansas shooting, another mass shooting occurred in Mason County, Washington where four people were killed. In 2016, there have been 50 mass shootings.
With mass shootings occurring almost every week, has the public become indifferent or "numb" to these events? Will more media coverage help shape mass shootings as a priority issue? When will stronger gun regulation be enforced?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/26/obama-mass-shootings-should-dominate-news/80995514/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-decries-deadly-kansas-shooting-numb/story?id=37228183
2 comments:
I honestly think that yes, the public has become almost immune to these mass shootings. It is becoming a broken record. A tragedy happens, like the Kalamazoo shootings, people mourn, complain about guns, and then move on. It's unacceptable to react this way. People being shot shouldn't be a phase of attention. Yes, it is very impersonal for people to hear stories on TV, so they might not react that strongly, but the families affected by the death have to endure much more. The media should reflect more public outcries against gun rights so that politicians can understand just how much of a civil problem it has become. I don't think gun provisions will happen soon. Consider Sandy Hook, where children and young school teachers died. One would think THAT would be the switch around, but it hasn't. It's hard to know what will be.
I agree that people in the United States have become numb to the mass shootings. Although the shootings occur in the US, they seem remote and far away to most people since all they hear about the shootings are that they happened in a distant place. The proximity will probably increase a general population's sentiments toward shootings if one happened even closer to home. I do not think that more media coverage will help shape mass shootings as a priority issue. They have already been covered extensively and not much changed. I'm not sure when stronger gun regulation will be enforced, but even after it is, I think it will take a while to implement throughout the country. Additionally, it takes a long time for legislation to be passed through Congress since it has to go through both houses, different committees, the floor, and be revised. I think that since it is such a controversial debate over the second amendment rights that it will take a long time for a bill to be passed through Congress.
Post a Comment