American Society’s Distasteful Numbness Towards Mass Shootings in the United States

Guest blogger Madeline Hopper takes up last week's theme, examining:  

American Society’s Distasteful Numbness Towards Mass Shootings in the United States

 

I start my day like most 22-year olds, scrolling through Instagram, followed by Snapchat, and then, in a desperate attempt to feel like my morning has a purpose outside of gossip and celebrity tabloids, I turn to the news. While I usually just glance over the morning headlines, on November 8^th a particular tweet caught my eye:

 

 

 

 

@ChelseaClinton’s retweet and caption of @MichaelSkolknik’s original tweet was screenshotted and posted to Instagram on numerous accounts. I read it not once, not twice, but three times. I quickly took to google, researching the definition of a mass shooting: a “mass shooting,” as defined by the FBI, is when four or more individuals are shot or killed (excluding the shooter) at the same general time and location. And here there were 304 mass shootings in the United States at the time of posting. Only a select few made the news.

Just a mere five days later when @Souljaguac’s tweet appeared on my screen the first time, I quickly glanced over it. The second time the tweet appeared I stared at it trying to take in the complexity of the statement. The United States’ Food and Drug Administration had placed several restrictions on flavored Juul and similar e-cigarettes in an effort to curb the increase in nicotine and tobacco use among American youth. While e-cigarettes play no role in the legality of assault rifles, this tweet correlated the two in a tangible manner for my generation. My generation is 1) addicted to social media, 2) largely victims of the “Juul epidemic” and 3) leaders in challenging the American government on instituting measures to prevent further mass shootings. This tweet provoked substantial reactions from my generation by simply drawing on the very fact that while action was taken to curb the use of flavored e-cigarettes, little effective action has been taken to prevent the sale of assault rifles.

In the past two years, there has been a surge in youth activism towards curbing both the ability and action of purchasing assault rifles in an effort to prevent gun violence in the United States. However, despite this surge in youth activism, it is evident that the government has not enacted and instituted enough preventative measures to stop the reoccurrence and increase in mass shootings. We are seemingly trapped in a cyclical pattern: we see a catastrophic headline, we react, we grieve, we come up with a plan, we sign a petition, we relax, we see a headline, we react, we donate, we pray it won’t happen again, but it does. Time after time.

So, this begs the question, is the frequency in which mass shootings occur numbing the American public’s response? The looming fear, in my eyes, is that the normalization of mass shootings in the United States threatens the political energy necessary to implement measures to ensure that the catastrophic increase is halted. When headlines that once jolted one’s soul no longer leave the same impact, that’s when we should question the effect that the normalization of lives lost due to gun violence has had on American society.

Slavoj Žižek, a famous sociologist and author of “Violence” among dozens of other publications, introduced the idea of subjective violence and invisible systemic violence that provides an exploration of the different forms of violence that coexist in society. Žižek argues that we spend too much time talking and reading about subjective violence (violence that is perpetrated by a known agent such as a shooter), and we tend to ignore the “invisible systemic violence” that occurs every day. Žižek even states we don’t recognize invisible system violence as disturbing the natural order and fabric everyday life because of its frequency, which is when issues may arise. As Chelsea Clinton’s tweet noted, there were 304 shootings in the first 312 days of the year. Yet how many were reported in the media? Just a mere fraction of the 304. This very simple fact alone indicates that American society is witnessing mass shootings with such consistency that they are no longer deemed newsworthy. Using Žižek’s framework, can gun violence now be classified as invisible systemic violence, occurring so often that we fail to recognize it or talk about it in an adequate manner?

 

How does one rationally reconcile the very fact that they may be becoming numb to the occurrence of mass shootings in the United States? Is there a way to humanely rationalize such a phenomenon? Though there are several factors that will determine an individual’s reaction or response to such news, it is worth questioning the long-term effects of such consistent exposure to mass shootings. Now that I’ve worked through my own personal guilt in my lack of dedication to ending gun violence in the United States, it’s evident I’ll be getting involved tonight.