Aside from the already highly-publicized mass-shooting events in Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX, other deadly shootings in the U.S. are on the rise. Over the weekend, 3 were killed and another 12 wounded on a crowded Philadelphia street, and in Chattanooga, TN, another 3 were killed and 14 wounded in a shooting outside of a bar. Both of these appear to be related to late-night fights that broke out and escalated. This follows another event last week in Tulsa, OK, where a man entered a hospital and killed two doctors and two other staff before taking his own life. One of the doctors killed was the shooter’s surgeon, whom the shooter apparently had planned to kill out of anger due to his continuing back pain after a recent surgery.
There is no obvious direct correlation among any of the events, and most have very different circumstances, but the trend overall is clearly upward. By the end of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, murders by firearm saw a 34% increase from the year before, the highest jump ever recorded, according to Pew Research. Gun murders in 2020 were 49% higher than five years ago, and 75% higher than 10 years ago. The rate has continued to grow in 2021. Compare the FBI’s findings that there were 3 “active shooter” incidents in 2000, but 40 in 2020.
While there is an intense debate about gun regulations in the Congress, there remains a virtual blackout about the underlying causes of what is clearly a people being driven insane. While this is commonly blamed on two years of lockdowns and the pandemic, the issues were already lurking below the surface, waiting for a trigger. Worsening economic and inflationary pressures are pushing people against the wall, with increasingly bleak hopes for the future. This is the other side of the same coin as the skyrocketing drug overdose deaths in the U.S., which surpassed 100,000 during 2021. As the New York Times quoted Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum: “Something has happened to the American people during these two years that has taken violence to a new level. We don’t know what it is, but if you talk to police chiefs they will tell you that what used to be some small altercation now becomes a shooting and a homicide.”
The cultural dynamic must be changed — a Classical-humanist Renaissance is needed now more than ever.
