Mass shootings are an American problem. There's an American solution. - By Chris Murphy
By Chris Murphy October 2 at 7:32 PM
Chris Murphy, a Democrat, represents Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
On awful, gut-churning days such as Monday, I find it important to remind myself that mass shootings happen almost nowhere else but the United States. As we become normalized to the regular pace of massive, execution-style killings — Sandy Hook, Charleston, Orlando and now Las Vegas — it’s critical to understand that the Groundhog Day phenomenon of horrific mass shootings is exclusive to the United States. I find consolation in this fact, because if the problem is particularly American, then the solution can be, too.
Thus far, though, our response to regular mass slaughter has been, quite frankly, uniquely un-American. Our nation, in a short quarter-millennium, catapulted itself to global preeminence by solving the world’s greatest problems and exporting those solutions to the rest of the world. Participatory democracies. Open economies. Web-based communication. All American innovations to the great conundrums of the globe. But when it comes to perhaps the oldest and most important human concern — the fear of physical harm — the United States does not lead. In fact, we choose to be an increasingly distant outlier of exceptional violence.
I served as congressman for Newtown, Conn., when a gunman opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 children and six educators. The parents of those kids are now my friends. They will never recover from what they have endured. The scars are brutally deep and exposed for all to see. No one should wish the scorching pain of losing a son or daughter on anyone. And so, in a very personal way, my heart has been with Las Vegas every minute since news broke of the tragedy.
And I awoke Monday hoping that maybe this shooting is the one that will persuade America to reclaim the mantle of global leadership that has been at our core since our origin. The path to this leadership lies, I believe, in the special nature of gun violence as a political issue.
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