We need laws to stop gun violence, but we need to stop glorifying it, too
By Dr. Lyndon Haviland
April 20, 2021
TheHill.com
Eight innocent people were killed Friday at an Indianapolis FedEx facility, the latest in a deadly string of mass shootings across the country. There have been at least 156 of them already this year. … We need to be outraged, not apathetic, when innocent people are killed by gun violence. We need to bristle at, not be enamored by, guns that are routinely dramatized in action movies, video games, music videos and television shows. The less we venerate gun violence in the imagery we see everyday, the less common and familiar it will become.
We don’t need moments of silence for victims and their families after the next mass shooting. We need actions to reduce the number of guns on the streets and in the hands of those who shouldn’t have them. It will take more than what any individual law in Congress can enforce. It starts by confronting the role guns have in our culture.
We need to stop glorifying gun violence before we have any chance of ending it.