So much of American politics today promotes a profound sense of impotence – the inability to move entrenched forces, even a degree. With devastating …
Storyboard
U.S. gun violence: Why you shouldn’t turn away
In the wake of the killing of at least eight people at a Texas mall, the Monitor has collected a series of stories to demonstrate that ways forward are possible and that problems remain entrenched only so long as we turn away. As editor Mark Sappenfield summed up in the introduction to the series that you'll find in this storyboard, "So often, the product of entrenched politics is a loss of hope and agency. But that can be true only when we give up."
Gun regulation comes down to a question of who do people trust with their safety. Is it government? Fellow citizens? Or only themselves? How publics respond explains the differences between the gun culture of the U.S. and other countries.
Gun rights supporters see a righteous cause in defending liberty through the object of a firearm. Gun control advocates see an “idolatry of the gun” that elevates a weapon over human life. Both frame the debate in almost religious terms.
A series of high-profile shootings for seemingly mundane things – ringing the wrong doorbell, turning into the wrong driveway – reveals an on-edge society. This does not take place in a vacuum.
Although Southern and Midwestern states have resisted changes to gun policies, they’re looking for ways forward that show they’re responding to the violence touching more and more Americans.
Both survivors of mass shootings and mental health professionals have noted a strange paradox of life after trauma: “Somehow when we survive, many people actually find that they have gained clarity and have a purpose,” says a trauma counselor who survived the Las Vegas shooting.
