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At three different times last month, I asked a different relative to guess how many gun deaths there have been since the Sandy Hook tragedy. None knew what the others had guessed, or even that I had asked the question of anyone but them. Strangely, the three answers differed only by how many zeros the number included.
One guessed 3.
One guessed 30.
Another guessed 300.
Suffice it say all three answers fell far short.
Most news outlets rarely even report on the thirty or so daily gun deaths in America, yet focus heavily on the mall and school shootings. This helps implant a false sense of the true scope of the problem of gun violence in America.
I also think this is finally beginning to change. Slowly yes, but I think much of America is waking up to the seriousness of just how many gun deaths we have every day. We are starting to wake to just how quickly that adds up every week, every month, and just how devastatingly huge those numbers are when accumulated over the course of a year.
Sadly though, much of the nation is in denial of the true scope of this problem. One of the biggest hurdles to doing anything to truly address the problem is to first acknowledge the true scope of the daily tragedy of American gun deaths.
I offer anyone to seek out the daily, the weekly, the monthly, the yearly count of American gun deaths. The numbers are so high that even the callous rhetoric of dismissing up to half of them because they are "just suicides", cannot diminish the scope of the tragedy.
I offer you the idea of repeating the same unofficial poll I did.
First, gather the latest daily update by googling the phrase "how many gun deaths since sandy hook".
Then ask friends and relatives how many people they think have died from guns in America since the Sandy Hook tragedy. How far off do you think they will be?
