By BRIAN A. HOWEY
INDIANAPOLIS – Merriam-Webster defines "atrocity" as "a shockingly bad or atrocious act, object, or situation." In a different era, the word "atrocity" was used mostly in wartime situations, be it Babyn Yar in Kyiv, the Katyn Forest massacre in Poland, the Andersonville Prison during the American Civil War, or My Lai in Vietnam.
But since 1999 following the first modern mass school shooting at Columbine HS, I've been using words like "atrocity" and "massacre" to describe everyday American places: Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the Pulse night club in Orlando, the FedEx facility here in Indy, Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, and now Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
America, obviously, has a gun problem, as well as a mental health dilemma. School massacres have gone from about 25 annually in 2000 to 236 in 2021 and more than 135 so far this year.
Since the pandemic hit in 2020, Americans have bought 40 million guns. Pew Research reports that the U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 – the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to data published this month by the CDC. There were 7.8 homicides for every 100,000 people in the United States in 2020, up from six homicides per 100,000 people the year before. According to the FBI, there were 21,570 murders last year, up 29% from 16,669 in 2019 and the highest annual total since 1995.
A majority of the of these school rampages were done with AR-15, a gun designed for military combat. The 18-year-old Uvalde terrorist legally purchased two AR-15s, though he wasn't old enough to buy a beer.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board observed: The recent proliferation of mass shootings suggests a deeper malady than gun laws can fix. Firearm laws were few and weak before the 1970s. Yet only in recent decades have young men entered schools and supermarkets for the purpose of killing the innocent. That a teenager could look at a nine-year-old, aim a gun, and pull the trigger signals some larger social and cultural breakdown.
The leading cause of death among American children is now guns, according to Axios. Indiana ranks 7th in the U.S. with 8.7 deaths per 100,000. Nearly two-thirds of the 4,368 U.S. youths up to age 19 who were killed by guns in 2020 were homicide victims (car crashes killed less than 4,000).
How should we respond?
A recent CBS News poll found 54% of Americans want laws covering the sale of guns; 30% believe gun laws should be kept as they are, and 16% want them to be less strict. A Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted entirely after the Uvalde massacre found 88% support requiring background checks for all gun sales (22% of guns are acquired without one); 75% back a national database; 67% favor banning assault rifles; 84% back blocking gun sales to those documented to be mentally ill.