Another pandemic needs attention: mass shootings

A pandemic refers to an outbreak of an illness over a whole country or the world. We are currently going through the viral pandemic known as COVID-19. We are hoping, even assuming, that we will find treatments and a vaccine and it will pass in time.

Another illness has been viral in the United States for some time: mass shootings. The only treatment or vaccine for that disease is political will. Enough people need to vote for candidates who pledge to end or at least reduce mass shootings through reasonable measures that will bring common sense to our gun laws.

I have a personal stake in this particular political issue. My daughter was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018 — Valentine’s Day — when a former student entered and slaughtered 17 students and school staff with an AR-15 assault weapon.

In fact, she passed within a few feet of him as he secretly entered the school moments before he started shooting. She could easily have been killed.

On the day of the shooting in 2018, and again on Feb. 14 last year, the pain that I felt was overwhelming. As Valentine’s Day approached this year, I vowed — as I did last year — that this year would be different for me. I was right; the flashbacks I had were worse. Maybe that is because our society has still not done what it needs to do to try to reduce mass shootings, as I had hoped, despite the fact that need is so painfully obvious. That means my child and others are still at risk.

Five minutes and 32 seconds changed my child’s life forever. Her childhood vanished in a flash of gunfire. She transferred schools because she couldn’t go back in that building. At her new school, there are no prom or football games to go to. (Now COVID-19 has caused graduation to be canceled.) In some cases, kids who would normally be in touch aren’t these days because they don’t want to be reminded. Two students at the school the day of the shooting have died by suicide, one of them the child of a co-worker of mine.

After the killings in Parkland, my daughter and I tried to make a difference. We traveled to Tallahassee to plead with state legislators; we also went to Washington, D.C., and spoke to officials there. Nothing has changed. Gun violence prevails. It has become commonplace for my daughter’s generation.

My daughter was born in 2001; she was six months old when 9/ 11 occurred. Three years later, a ban on the sale of assault rifles in the U.S. was allowed to expire. The average number of mass shootings in the country went from 6.4 annually between 2000 and 2006 to 16.4 per year between 2008 and 2013, according to the FBI. That didn’t include gang killings or incidents of domestic violence. Congress has defined a mass shooting as the death of three or more people resulting from a single incident of violence.

There were 31 mass shootings of all kinds in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

More recently, our country has seen mass shootings in churches and synagogues. My daughter is now afraid to attend our synagogue.

Why doesn’t this change? For two reasons: the National Rifle Association and members of Congress who side with it. There is only one way to fix this: Vote for candidates who won’t take campaign donations from the NRA and who want to take on the moral and ethical responsibility to reduce the number of mass killings.

The NRA is still leveling the false charge that those of us who seek changes in our gun laws want to abolish Second Amendment rights. I do not support taking away all guns from Americans. But we do need to allow local communities to enact their own gun safety measures. Additionally, we need to mandate background checks and three-day waiting periods for all gun sales or transfers, including closing the loopholes for gun shows and unlicensed gun sales. Finally, our children need Congress to reinstate the ban on the sales of assault rifles.

As the 2020 general election approaches, know that your vote is the most valuable contribution you can make this year to bring change. I don’t want you or any other parent to go through what we are experiencing.

As a nation, we are confronting one pandemic and we will defeat it. We need to defeat the pandemic of gun violence as well. Pick candidates in November who will do that and make sure to vote!

As the 2020 general election approaches, know that your vote is the most valuable contribution you can make this year to bring change. I don’t want you or any other parent to go through what we are experiencing.