The same day that eight students and an English professor were killed and nine others injured by gunfire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, this tweet popped up online:
The shooting in Roseburg, Oregon today was the first US school shooting since Harrisburg High School in South Dakota. Yesterday.
— Adam Webb (@adamtweetwebb) 1 October 2015
The day after the Roseburg event, five more were shot and one killed in a Baltimore shopping mall, and another four shot, three of them killed (including the shooter) in Inglis, Florida. They were the 295th and 296th mass shootings (defined as an incident in which four or more people are shot) in the United States in 2015. That's more than one per day so far this year.
There have been 45 gun-related incidents in American schools in 2015. Of these, 32 involved one or more people getting shot; in 16 cases, at least one person has died. As of today, half of the country's 50 states have already had at least one such incident.
America has become a country of startling statistics like this. After every successive shooting, a hundred new articles rattle off the latest, or the same. Post-shooting conversation has become its own genre.
Personally, I don't know how our country moved past the murders of 20 six- and seven-year old children in 2012 in Newtown, CT, without any change happening. But it did.
There have been moves on the local level in some places — Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and San Francisco have all banned high capacity gun magazines (more than eight bullets), as have six states, the District of Columbia and a number of smaller cities.
But there have been 142 gun related incidents at schools since Newtown. Of the 12 worst shootings ever in US history, six have happened since 2007. The Oregon shooting is the sixth-worst school shooting in US history.
Also, every American state now permits at least some gun owners to carry concealed weapons. In seven states, you don't even need a permit to do so. In five other states, you don't need a permit, but there are restrictions, such as you have to be a citizen of that state or you can only conceal a handgun.
Yes, in the first seven states, you can conceal any gun that you legally own, which at this point seems to include everything short of a bazooka. And the bazooka lobby is no doubt growing.
I've listened