Every time we grow numb to another mass shooting, we lose a bit of our humanity | Opinion

In high school, many of us read Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” The piece, published first in a 1948 edition of New Yorker, is about a small, rural community that comes together annually to pick one person’s name in a lottery. The story’s shocking twist is not revealed until the end: The community stones the lottery winner to death.

Jackson’s work is a piece of fiction. So why does it seem like real-life deaths that occur every day hardly shock us at all?

For my entire life, I have heard people make various claims that even one life is a great sacrifice for society. I don’t think we believe that anymore, or maybe we never did. I am not exactly sure why we have become so numb to reports of loss of life. But our numbness feels like it is getting worse. Admittedly, I am somewhat inconsistent as I am pro-life and against most forms of gun control.

My point here, however, is about the sanctity of life.

The constant loss of life in our country is hardly fiction: I was shocked to see that there were 37 mass shootings in the United States in December alone (mass shootings are defined as events where four or more people are injured or killed).

Despite reading the newspaper and my social media feeds almost every day, I don’t recall seeing news about most of these mass shootings. Are they not important or novel enough to be written about?

Then, also in December, the assassination of healthcare executive Brian Thompson took place on the streets of New York. The brazen attack was caught on video, and the shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, engraved political messages on bullet casings left at the scene. Mangione became something of a pop culture icon, with many social media users deeming the shooter attractive. The tragedy was even mocked on Saturday Night Live.

Just another lost life. Yet I suspect Thompson’s young children didn’t find Colin Jost’s jabs very funny.

Locally, this newspaper is full of reports of traffic deaths caused all over the region by excessive speeds, drunk drivers or poor conditions. Other than my high school classmate, Jose Luis Silva, I can’t name a single one of the victims, but their families all can. It hurts them, but it does not hurt us enough.

It seems that many of the people around me are drawing attention to women or children who are dying because they did not get access to the health care that they need. Should we care about those lives more than mass shooting victims, assassinated executives or traffic fatalities? Our collective lack of attention to the victims and the desensitization of lost lives has made us too calloused to victims of crime.

Our society is showing too little care or concern for loss of life. Other than the Columbine mass shooting in 1999, Sandy Hook in 2012, Parkland in 2018 and Stockton in 1989, most of us would struggle to name other shootings because, unfortunately, they can get lost in the sheer number of tragedies that occur each year.

We should not care or accept these incidents as part of our society. Instead, we should be more vigilant and protective of each and every human life. We should find the assassination of Thompson abhorrent. When people laugh at or cheer on his death, we should react negatively — just like we did when Alex Jones mocked the Sandy Hook parents who suffered the loss of their children.

If we truly value life, we can’t pick and choose which lives we value. This is true for loved ones, those we disagree with and those having tough times. Allowing casual jokes about the death of a politician, a healthcare executive or someone in a mental health crisis devalues life and degrades our society.