Have you ever heard that there can be too much of a good thing? Well, can there also be too much of a bad thing?
We live in a world that makes it so easy to connect with everyone that we can scarcely connect with anyone. There are now so many shootings and other horrific disasters on the news and on social media that we just no longer care when we hear about a tragedy. Just as too much a of good thing is a bad thing, too many terrible tragedies have become normal.
I opened my phone this morning and simply typed in “shootings” in my news app. I found that there were dozens of shootings this Labor Day weekend, but who cares? That may sound harsh and not at all empathetic, but do any of us really care about what happens in big cities miles away or third world countries or anywhere that’s not right here, right now? It’s awful, but it is the way of the world today.
We have got to make a change. The only people who still remember these tragedies are those who lost someone. Is that what it’s going to take for any of us to really care? Obviously no one wants to experience a shooting or such a violent death, so we need to care now.
It is not my intention to push gun control propaganda onto all of you, but I believe it’s quite apparent that the system we currently have doesn’t work. The reality of the situation is that we really want to keep our guns. The United States is a bit obsessed in that regard. According to the Washington Post, we even have more firearms than human beings in this country. No other nation comes anywhere close to U.S. guns-to-people ratio. That’s a bit scary.
Quite recently, someone on this very campus was armed and dangerous. Even then, we are struck with apathy. Ultimately, the situation was contained and dealt with, but what if it wasn’t? It could have been much worse than it was, and many people were taking the threat as a joke, as a far-off tragedy that wouldn’t amount to any serious consequences. Had even a single person at this university been killed—student or faculty—the entire university would have cared then, but cared too late, and even then, the country wouldn’t blink an eye.
Apathy is a luxury we can no longer afford. I certainly don’t have all the answers; I’m just a writer for a university newspaper, but I know that we need a change in the country. Change will only come once once we begin to care about the world outside of our own bubble. It’s time to consider what’s happening around us, and soon enough it could happen to any one of us.
