During the first week of September, the latest mass shooting tragedy occurred at a high school in Winder, Georgia. This has thrust the issue of gun safety reform squarely into the 2024 presidential campaign.
Thus far, there have been more mass shootings than days in the year (385 according to the Gun Violence Archive). Here are a few other shocking statistics to consider:
After the attempted assassination of former President Trump, will there be renewed discussions around gun control? Gun violence researchers saying that there’s a contagion effect with every incident encouraging copy cats, little progress has been made.
For over two years now, every day and night, I have been scanning the media comments sections of mainstream media articles to gauge social ebbs and flows. And I have been tracking the influence of obviously professional trolls and bots. (I should write a thesis about their unfortunately profound influence.) I have been alarmed at how they have been largely successful in guilting, deriding, confusing, distracting, frightening, and shaming genuinely concerned, good-hearted commenters from taking solid, necessarily no-holds-barred action to reverse major societal and political wrongs and destructive movements and trends that have drastically increased in power and control during the same time period.