When politicians fail, we see repeat gun violence victims

The Messenger Editorial Board

On Feb. 13, 2023, around 8:18 p.m. in East Lansing, Michigan, gunfire erupted. The shooting that took place on the campus of Michigan State University would end up leaving three dead and five injured as well as resulting in the death of the gunman. For many students across the campus, this shooting was not the first.

Emma Riddle, a freshman at MSU, had survived the Oxford High School shooting that left four dead and seven injured just 14 months prior. She tweeted: “14 months ago, I had to evacuate from Oxford High [School] when a 15-year-old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more. Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State [University], once again texting everyone ‘I love you.’ When will this end?”

But, Riddle is not alone. Jackie Matthews, a senior at MSU, is once again dealing with the aftermath of a shooting. Matthews, who is from Newton, Connecticut, lost friends and neighbors in the Sandy Hook shooting and suffered a PTSD fracture from sheltering in the adjacent middle school.

In 2018, a news clip of Susan Orfanos, the mother of Tel Orfanos, went viral after she stated “I hope to God nobody else sends me any more prayers. I want gun control.” Orfanos’ son was a survivor of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, but he was killed only 402 days later during the Thousand Oaks Shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill.

Repeated mass shootings are the ultimate failure of legislators. For decades, legislators across the country and federal representatives have promised meaningful changes to gun laws and safety to prevent mass shootings from ever happening again. After the Oxford shooting, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic politicians vowed to pursue new gun control laws as well as revive stalled bills that pertain to gun safety. However, nothing came of it seeing that, just over a year later, another shooting would occur in the state.

The Democrats of the state of Michigan are not the only ones to use this failed “never again” strategy. After every avoidable tragedy in the form of a mass shooting, politicians, especially those of the left-wing, give their promises of change on the horizon. Such promises offer more hope than the thoughts and prayers offered by right-wing politicians. However, they are also just as ineffective Their offers are to save face and curry favor with those who elected them and to seem like they are doing something when the reality is that there have been no changes.

Of course, those who try to offer real solutions have been stalled by those who do not care to let the citizens of their country die. The politicians who offer and work on solutions offer real hope for the future, more so than hope and prayers, but until, if ever, the major politicians reflect these views of needing real tangible change, there will not be any.

So many individuals have offered their own share of solutions but with futility. Politicians are failing their electorate by aiding in their traumatization and death. Why is it up to them who lives or dies? Until real change makes waves across the country, repeat victims of gun violence will continue to be involuntary martyrs to the epidemic that Americans have created in the love affair the nation has with guns.