Editorial: Mass shootings are now the norm

Accurate as of December 17, 2015

On the morning of December 2, I was sitting in my first period study hall when I got a text from a friend. He takes an 8 a.m. math class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) three days a week, and Wednesday happens to be one of those days. He said there was a report of an armed suspect near the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps building, leading to a campus-wide lockdown.

Chapel Hill High School went into a lockdown of its own shortly thereafter. However, the threat was neutralized and we carried on with our days, thinking nothing of it. It was any regular morning.

A couple of hours later, two heavily armed assailants entered a medical center in San Bernadino, California with murderous intent. The two gunmen, whom we now know to be a married couple, shot and killed 14 people, wounding 21 others. Numerous lives were changed forever; families were torn apart. It was devastating news. It was also information that I was unaware of until 10:35 p.m. that night, nearly nine hours after the killings occurred.

I was connected all day, randomly checking social media and texting friends. The San Bernadino shooting never graced my newsfeeds and timelines; it never surfaced as a topic of conversation amongst my friends.

There has been a mass shooting nearly every day of this year. At some point, we need to ask ourselves: Is this the world we really want to live in? Waiting for one deadly threat to give way to the next one and thinking nothing of it?

The threat of mass shootings has become a part of our daily lives. Obviously, gun control is one possible solution. But given the polarizing political culture of our country and differing interpretations of the second amendment, it is unlikely that a compromise will be met any time soon.

We have come to expect tragedies such as San Bernadino to happen regularly, and social media reflects it. Looking back at my Twitter feed, I would have likely read celebrity headlines and basketball scores before I learned that 14 people lost their lives in a California massacre.

#massshootings