North Texas Daily

On Feb. 3, a gunman opened fire in a residence hall at Texas A&M-Commerce, killing two people and injuring a two-year-old.

Residence halls are meant to be a place of camaraderie among students where activities, studying, independence and everyday life happens whilst continuing your educational career. However, panic and fear set in when gunshots were fired in a place meant to bring people together.

This only further begs the question, is nowhere safe anymore?

Shootings are so commonplace in America now that it could be a struggle remembering all of the ones that took place over the course of one year. In the last year, there have been shootings at schools, grocery stores, bars and now something as innocent as a residence hall.

Hearing about so many shootings occurring what seems like all the time, they start to lose the shock value that should always be there when ramblings of a shooting occur. Shootings have basically become somewhat of a trend now because they are so normalized in today’s society. To put it frankly, it is no longer a surprise when one happens because there are so many that occur in a month or a year that they all start to blend together in one tragic and horrifying blur.

Another issue that lays within each shooting is how quickly each one leaves the news cycle to make room for coverage of the next one that always inevitably occurs and usually not very long after either. It seems that a shooting will only get a few days of coverage in the news cycle before it eventually gets swept under the rug.

This also leads to the most important question of all: What will have to happen or who will have to die for government officials to realize that enough is enough and change to occur?

There is already a fear looming in place in possibly finding out what that exactly might be, but something must really be done to prevent shootings happening so freely and so often.

It is unfortunate that an argument still needs to be brought up, especially after so many shootings that have occurred, but it is still an ever-important issue that needs to be talked about. If it is not still talked about, there is the risk that nothing will be done about it and it will keep going on.

People should be able to go to the grocery store, to the movie theater, to school, a Halloween party or their dorm rooms without fear of being gunned down.

All of these things are meant to bring people together, especially when in celebration of a holiday, but the underlying threat and fear of a shooting taking place is enough to wean off anyone from wanting to do extremely simple things like those mentioned above.

We as a society cannot afford to ignore the issue at hand when it comes to shootings any longer, especially when it all feels so close to home.

Editors Note: This editorial is the same one we ran in October of last year following a shooting in Greenville at a Halloween party with the details updated to reflect the shooting at a residence hall at A&M-Commerce on Feb. 3. to illustrate how commonplace shootings are in America.

On Feb. 4, the shooter at A&M-Commerce has been identified as the ex-boyfriend of one of the victims and is believed to have fatally shot Abbaney Matts, her sister Deja Matts and Deja’s 2-year-old son. This shooting serves as an example that legal gun restrictions — such as mental health screenings — could help prevent occurrences of domestic abuse and other forms of violence.

We’ve repeated our words, how much longer will these actions and meaningless thoughts and prayers repeat before real change occurs?

Featured Illustration: Miranda Thomas