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America’s Love/Hate Relationship with Violence

For the last few nights I’ve been sleepless. I have debated over and over again inside my head whether or not I should write about an extremely controversial subject on my blog. About a topic that divides and tears America apart and makes the rest of the world just shake their heads at us: Gun Control.

After much thought, I decided that as a mother and as an American citizen, I could no longer be silent and just share my beliefs over Facebook with my friends. Instead, I would put together an emotional piece on why I believe we should have gun control and why we must put more pressure on institutions such as the media, our mental health care system and society as a whole to change the deep-rooted, dark culture of violence in America.

It is an overwhelming topic. In fact, often I don’t even know where to start. So I am going to try to lay out my feelings and beliefs now and see if we can have a real conversation about guns and our love/hate relationship with violence in this nation. Whether you agree or disagree on my beliefs, it is up to you. But until we start having a real, honest dialogue about what is happening in our country nothing will change.

Photo and Image credit: Everytown USA

Photo and Image credit: Everytown USA

The facts:

Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and thousands more injuries annually.[1] *

  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, firearms (excluding BB and pellet guns) were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) [2] 
  • 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000)[3] 
  • 21,175 by suicide with a firearm,[4]
  • 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm,[4] 
  • 281 deaths due to firearms-use with “undetermined intent”[5] for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms (excluding firearm deaths due to legal intervention).
  • 1.3% of all deaths in the country were related to firearms.[1][6]
  • In 2010, gun violence cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $516 million in direct hospital costs.[12]
  • Despite widespread concern about the impacts of gun violence on public health, Congress has banned the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from conducting research on gun violence.[18]

*Above content from Wikepedia. I cross-checked every statistic and source for accuracy. 

Is this the world we want for our children?

Per Everytown for Gun Safety: "Since 2013, there have been at least 142 school shootings in America — an average of nearly one a week. How many more before our leaders pass common-sense laws to prevent gun violence and save lives? Communities all over the country live in fear of gun violence. That’s unacceptable. We should feel secure in sending our children to school — comforted by the knowledge that they’re safe.

Per Everytown for Gun Safety: “Since 2013, there have been at least 142 school shootings in America — an average of nearly one a week. How many more before our leaders pass common-sense laws to prevent gun violence and save lives? Communities all over the country live in fear of gun violence. That’s unacceptable. We should feel secure in sending our children to school — comforted by the knowledge that they’re safe”.

Perception versus Reality:

So why is it that people are more fearful of being killed in a terrorist attack or traveling to a “dangerous” country when there are more deaths by gun violence right outside our backdoor? Obama recently urged media to compare the number of deaths by gunfire each year to the total number of deaths from terrorism. The results were surprising. From 2004 to 2013 316,545 people died by firearms in the US. During that same period, the number of U.S. citizens killed overseas by terrorists was 277, while another 36 were killed in domestic acts of terrorism (Star Tribune Editorial “Placing the Blame on Another Mass Shooting”). My question is: Who is our government spending all our money on to fight? Yes, terrorism. What are we doing to fight our own mass killings in the US. Not much. 

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The Power of Social Media in Making Change: #YesAllWomen

Last Friday was a beautiful, summer day in Minnesota. After a long winter, bright blue skies and warm weather had finally arrived and I was looking forward to a lovely, three-day holiday weekend that would launch us into summer. Then I read the news and my heart sank. Another devastating killing spree had shocked our nation. Another disillusioned young white man by the name of Elliot Rodger had taken out his displeasure on the world by killing six innocent others near the campus of University of California in Santa Barbara . Yet this time, he had another motive: Misogyny, the hatred of women and girls.

Screenshot of a tweet. Photo source: CNN

Screenshot of a tweet. Photo source: CNN

His disturbing YouTube video illustrating his utter hatred of women has shocked and angered people across the globe. And his shooting rampage has sparked a global feminist outcry of anger, rage, grief and sadness in social media with many women sharing their own stories of harassment, sexism, violence and rape.

An exempt from the transcript of his video is enough to make you sick:

“Hi, Elliot Rodger here. Well, this is my last video. It all has to come to this. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day I will have my revenge against humanity, against all of you.

For the last eight years of my life, since I hit puberty, I’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires, all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, never to me. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it. I take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one, the true alpha male. [laughs]

 

The social media hashtag #YesAllWomen that has been used on Facebook and Twitter since last Friday has been trending worldwide and continues to rush out a torrent of tweets at breakneck speed. On Sunday, the hashtag peaked at 61,500 tweets per Twitter and continues to run strong with continuous tweets about life in a sexist world. The hashtag which didn’t even exist before May 24th has been attached to over 1.2 million tweets and isn’t showing any signs yet of slowing down per Mashable. Similar to the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls that was invented as an outcry over the Nigerian school girls kidnapped on April 15th by extremists,  #YesAllWomen has become a social media phenomenon as a way for people to use their collective voice to promote change.

Photo of a tweet. Source: CNN

Photo of a tweet. Source: CNN

Some of the most powerful tweets I’ve read on #YesAllWomen are a powerful reminder that women are not safe, no matter where they live. I’ve written extensively on my blog about women’s rights and violence against women in poor, developing countries however obviously violence against women and sexism continue to be blatant even in our own country.

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There is no woman that has never been touched by sexism. The lucky ones live their lives without being harassed while many live their lives with the painful dark nightmare of being hit, groped, abused or raped.
Screen Shot 2014-05-28 at 11.48.00 AM

As a woman and a mother of both a daughter and a son, I sadly realize that there is a lot of ugliness in the world that I can no longer protect them from. I use the headlines of yet another killing spree and yet another stoning death of a Pakistani woman to teach them about the reality of the world we live in. It is my hope that the world will be a better place for them yet realistically I know that violence and misogyny will never be gone. I will try my best to instill love, compassion and understanding in my children in hope for a better day. But it scares me.

References for this post:

Further reading:

“Why Elliot Rodgers Misogyny Matters” – Freshly Pressed on WordPress

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