Gun Violence is Being Normalized: A Call for Gun Reform
Author: Montserrat Tijerina
Keywords: gun violence, gun reform, advovacy
As a first-year medical student observing a Chicago pediatric ICU, I couldn’t help noticing the constant stream of people going in and out of one of the patient rooms. After minutes of wondering, I walked over to my nurse and asked about the child.
“Gunshot wound to the head. She’s braindead. They will be pulling the plug in the next few hours.”
I shoved my emotions aside before I could feel anything. We had to see our next patient – so I numbed myself. Even as I heard the cries of the little child’s family echo down the hall.
“Compartmentalize,” I told myself. “Don’t think too much about it.”
But today I imagine the 19 children shot in Uvalde, Texas, and I can no longer force back my feelings. I have no numbness left to give. The leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1-19 years old is firearm-related death. Each day in the United States, about 19 children die or are treated in the ED for a firearm injury. It’s time to we treat gun violence as a preventable public health issue.
It’s August 2019. A gunman targets Latine communities in El Paso, Texas. He kills 23 people and injures 25 others at a Walmart. A week after the El Paso shooting, another gunman kills 7 people and injures 25 others in Midland-Odessa. Texas mourns. Texas demands action.
Governor Abbott promised. “Never again,” he said.
In response, he and the Texas legislature implemented eight executive orders, SB 11, and HB 1387 in September of 2019. The executive orders address the mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa and focus on improving reporting channels amongst law enforcement and the public when someone is deemed a threat or a concern for violence.
On the other hand, SB 11 and HB 1387 are primarily a response to the 2018 fatal shooting at Santa Fe High School that killed 13 students. SB 11 aims to increase mental health support in schools, requires easy classroom access to telephones, and establishes threat assessment teams that work to identify students who may pose a danger to school safety. HB 1387 removes the limit on the number of trained teachers and staff who can carry guns on public school grounds.
What’s baffling is the immediate response to mitigate – not eradicate – the threat of gun violence. Why improve reporting channels when stricter background checks can be put in place? Why create threat assessment teams that have the potential to profile students based on their race, ethnicity, and disabled status when we could work to ensure that guns, especially AR-15’s, do not reach the hands of teens not even old enough to grab a glass of beer? And it shouldn’t be lost on us that the high school teen who killed the children at Robb Elementary had purchased two rifles days after his 18th birthday, had recently made threats against his own classmates, and had been cutting scars on his face – all during Mental Health Awareness Month. Where are the mental health resources that Governor Abbott vowed to support?
“We know that words alone are inadequate,” Abbott said in response to many of these massacres. “Words must be met with action.”
And action, he took. In September of 2021, HB 1927 went into effect in Texas. It allows people who legally qualify and who are over 21 years old to publicly carry a gun without a license to carry. That same month, Texas named itself a “Second Amendment sanctuary state” as a means of banning state and local governments from implementing specific gun legislation coming from the federal level. The Texas legislature also passed SB 19 and HB 1500, which prohibits state and local contracts that “discriminate against the firearm and ammunition industries” and terminates the governor’s power to restrict gun sales during emergencies, respectively.
Fast-forward to May 24th, 2022. It’s a normal morning at Robb Elementary School. Students pass the school sign. “Welcome, Bienvenidos.” Summer break is just two days away. Parents cheer for their children as they watch the students’ honor roll ceremony. Many of these kids would be heading to Flores Middle School in August. Time flies: the children are growing up. Qué orgullo.
These are the last moments many parents spent with their children – hugging them, telling them how proud they are of them. Just a few hours later changed everything, forever, because of 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. Ramos shot 19 children and 2 teachers, who will never see their families again. These kids will never go to Flores Middle School. They will never attend a high school graduation. They will never live the lives we should have done better to protect. Their families will never be the same.
My questions for the Texas legislature: How do your state laws help our communities? Who or what are you really protecting?
The reality is that the state and federal governments must do more. Ten people in Buffalo were targeted and killed. A church in California was gunned. At least 22 people in Texas were massacred.
But hey – it’s just another two weeks in the United States.
Legislators tweet words. They mourn for a few days, and they send their thoughts and prayers to the families who want so much more from them. They go back to work, and they make firearms readily accessible for anyone to carry anywhere.
Wake up. Our children are dying. And somehow, we numb ourselves to it – again, and again.
As I prepare to become a doctor at the Pritzker School of Medicine, I refuse to become desensitized to the innocent deaths of children, mothers, fathers, and community members. I refuse to shove my emotions to the side and bottle up my agony in the face of such senseless violence. I refuse to normalize mass shootings.
Gun reform must start now. Take a moment to feel your full range of emotions, and click here to call or write to your local legislators.
About the author: Montserrat Tijerina is a medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
