Listen Here
Column by Andrea Hoffman
hoffmana1@findlay.edu
The desks are still empty. The parents’ hearts are still aching. The vigils are still burning. Yet when Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, the nation seemed to pause in collective shock, debating his legacy and mourning the loss. However, when children whose lives were stolen before they ever got the chance to grow up are murdered at school, we treat it as another line in a running tally of tragedies, moving on by the next news cycle.
The issue lies within us as Americans. We shouldn’t value one life over another, and we shouldn’t only start to be enraged and care about gun violence when a political figure is killed.
Less than two weeks ago, a mass shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, rang out, where two children were murdered, along with 21 others injured. Today, two students are in critical condition after a school shooting this afternoon in Evergreen, Colorado. Yet, I haven’t seen a single one of my peers post, share, or talk about either of these tragedies. But when I opened social media after hearing about what happened with Charlie Kirk, my feed was plagued with posts about the shooting.
I found myself asking why it takes someone with a large following getting publicly murdered for people to see a huge issue this country is facing. No one deserves to die by gun violence, not an innocent child, not a politician, not an everyday person, no one. But we can not only pay attention to this issue when someone influential has their life taken. American society has become so desensitized to gun violence that we only bat an eye when it’s someone who already occupies space in our feeds and headlines.
Gun violence is not a partisan issue. It does not discriminate by race, age, income, or ideology. Children have been killed in schools, worshippers attacked in churches, temples, and synagogues, and fans targeted at concerts and sporting events. Yet each time, after the initial wave of coverage, the outrage fades and we fall back into silence until the next tragedy. This cycle of forgetting and desensitization ensures that nothing changes.
The truth is, the media and public have trained each other to only react when the story is sensational enough to trend. The deaths of everyday Americans, our neighbors, classmates, co-workers, and children, are treated as statistics, while the death of a political figure becomes a spectacle. This imbalance not only dishonors victims of mass shootings but also guarantees meaningful reform will not happen.
If we truly want to put an end to the hurt and tragedy this country faces due to gun violence, we have to rely on action, not just thoughts and prayers. Our outrage must extend beyond the famous faces who fall victim to it. It must reach the classrooms where children are taught to hide under desks, the parents who have to bury their sons and daughters who never got to reach adulthood, and the communities living with the trauma of violence long after the cameras and reporters leave.
Every life lost to gun violence should matter equally. The question we need to ask ourselves is not why Charlie Kirk’s murder drew attention, but why we have allowed ourselves to become numb to the countless lives lost to gun violence. Our priorities must shift because if the loss of innocent children is not enough to shake us, what will?
