In Times of Darkness, We Need To Come Together

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

As Americans, our country is going through a tough time.

We as people are going through a tough time.

Within the last 72 hours, the United States has suffered not one or two, but three mass shootings. It started off on Saturday morning in El Paso, Texas, then in less than twelve hours later there was another shooting in Dayton, Ohio. Which then proceeded to the shooting that happened in Chicago just this morning!

So many lives have been taken in the last 72 hours, that it's completely unbelievable. How did our world get to this point, and when is this going to end?

As the media has taken hold of all this insanity, I have seen so many people blaming so many different people and things. I have seen most of the people blame Trump because of the way he speaks during his interviews and how he treats others. There have been those who are blaming weapons and saying how we need stricter gun laws, then there are those who are blaming the video game companies who make games like Call of Duty or first-person shooting games.

Now I'm not saying that some of these reasons are right or wrong, but these can't just be our first go-to reasons when events like these take place.

So far in 2019, the United States has had 248 mass shootings, and it's just barely into the month of August. What scares me the most is that within those 248 mass shootings, there have been over 62 people killed so far.

Before this past Saturday, I was completely unaware of how many shootings had taken place because I never heard anything from the news. It wasn't until I started finding resources for this post, that I became aware of just how many shootings have taken place. A mass shooting is defined as an incident involving multiple victims of firearms-related violence. With this information, I found a heartbreaking article written by Time with a complete timeline of all the shootings that have happened. Reading this article made me feel so much heartache for all of those who have suffered the loss of a loved one.

So much death and destruction in seven months, and yet we go to blaming the other side for this fault. When instead we should be working together to come up with ideas to end this madness. We all know that saying, "Two heads work better than one."

Maybe we should be doing that instead of blaming.

If we were to just work together, I feel that so much more would get done. Maybe less shootings and just awful distruction would stop taking place in this world.

Is that just to much to wish for? For a place where we can all live in peace?

As we face these times of darkness, now is the time for our country to come together. Working together, instead of against each other, might just be the answer we have been looking for.

- Tabatha