Essay On Mass Shooting

Our society has created a way for people communicate and stay in touch with current events with the click of a button. There is constant innovation and progression in technology and style, which society celebrates others accomplishments in the news, but there are also serious matters that bring dark times to our community. It seems that mass shootings are constantly popping up on our newsfeed. When looking at mass shootings in the United States, there is evidence history does in fact repeat itself. In the United States, the FBI defines a mass shooting as when “four or more [people are] shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location, not including the shooter” (Mass Shootings). In 2008, Seung-Hui Cho, a Virginia Tech student at the time, killed 33 people on his school’s campus making the Virginia Tech Massacre the second deadliest
Why did the two worst mass shootings in US history happen within an eight year period of each other? According to a study from Global Research , there has been a total of one hundred twenty-nine mass shootings in America in the last fifty years. From the 1910’s to 1960’s there were one hundred and one less shootings, which is puzzling. But the fact of the matter is that “those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it” and it seems that we are not learning from history (Burke, Edmund). The common thread to the two deadliest shootings in US history: mental illness. Hui Cho had “increasingly erratic behavior that Virginia Tech’s counseling center and the state's mental health system failed to recognize, communicate and treat” (The Washington Post). In the case of Mateen, co-workers said he “was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people” (The Washington Post). Mateen’s ex-wife said he beat her and that he was not a stable person, yet both of them were able to walk into a gun store and purchase weapons and enough ammunition to commit these heinous acts. In the last 30 years,