Washington Post (July 7)
“As the nation faces a pandemic, financial catastrophe and massive social justice protests, it is suddenly also confronting a spike in violence in some of its major cities. Tragedies struck in urban centers thousands of miles apart, with 65 people shot over the weekend in New York and 87 in Chicago, and homicides climbing from Miami to Milwaukee.” Shootings often rise in summer, but “the recent toll has been particularly devastating.”
Tags: Chicago, Cities, Confronting, Financial catastrophe, Homicides, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, Pandemic, Protests, Shootings, Social justice, Tragedies, Violence
CNN (August 20)
“Someone gets shot an average of about once per hour. That was the sobering reality in Chicago this weekend, when at least 58 people were shot.” Chicago’s “latest rash of violence happened despite an additional 600 officers on the streets.”
LA Times (February 15)
Less than two decades after the deadly shootings at Columbine, America’s shooting epidemic has simply become “a basic part of regular life.” Today America is inured to the blood. “The Florida shooting too shall pass, as did Columbine, Sandy Hook, Santa Monica College and so on — all allowed to fade into the backdrop of American memory without a thing being done. This is us. Until we decide finally, forcefully, effectively, that it is not.”
Tags: Blood, Columbine, Deadly, Epidemic, Florida, Sandy Hook, Santa Monica College, Shootings, U.S.
Washington Post (October 19)
“Of all the sad statistics associated with U.S. gun violence, none is more pitiful than the single digits that represent the ages of little children who unintentionally shoot themselves or others after getting hold of a gun.” On average a child shoots someone (or himself) unintentionally once a week. “No count can capture the lasting emotional damage of these shootings, to those who shoot as well as, if they survive, those who are shot.”
Tags: Children, Emotional damage, Gun violence, Sad, Shootings, Statistics, U.S.
Washington Post (September 2)
“Every day 297 Americans are shot in murders, assaults, suicides and accidents; 89 of them die.” Following the fatal shooting of their daughter last week, “Andy and Barbara Parker have emerged as powerful advocates for gun control…. That the Parkers were moved to activism by the murder of their daughter is a tragedy—and it’s an evolution experienced by far too many Americans over too many years. That makes the lack of action by those in public office to bring some sense to the country’s gun laws even more intolerable.”
Globe and Mail (October 23)
“It has been a difficult, sad week.” Two shootings shook the Canadian calm, but not the Canadian spirit. “Canada isn’t going anywhere. Nothing about what makes us, us, is ‘over.’ We have had a bad week. There is much loss to mourn. But we are still here. We are still standing. The True North remains, strong and free.”
