Due to the rise of political conflict in the United States, other societal issues, including school shootings, are being overshadowed in the media.
A school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado, occurred on the same day that Republican activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed; however, Kirk’s death consumed the media.
According to NBC breaking news reporter Dennis Romero, the Evergreen High School shooting lasted nine minutes, and two students were injured.
The student perpetrator also committed suicide right after the attack.
“The gunfire spanned an estimated nine minutes, [according to] the sheriff’s office, with the shooter firing most of the rounds inside the school,” Romero said.
According to Colorado Public Radio reporter Yesenia Robles, the shooting was meticulous and planned.
“The student waited until around lunchtime to start shooting. He reloaded his handgun multiple times as he made his way throughout the school looking for ‘targets,’” Robles said.
While media outlets covered this event, it did not get the attention that Charlie Kirk’s death did.
According to the Lexington County Democratic Party (LCDP), both incidents highlight the issue of gun violence as a whole, across the country.
“The news of Colorado’s Evergreen High School shooting, as well as Charlie Kirk’s death, is heartbreaking. These kinds of violent attacks are vile and disgusting, regardless of who it is aimed at,” LCDP said. “None of us should ever look away or stay silent when violence is used to silence someone else.”
Gun violence is a tragic and never-ending issue in our country, but the current administration is currently overlooking it.
President Donald Trump has spoken about the amount of crime in the U.S. as being an issue on his radar, but then proceeded to defund public safety initiatives that work to prevent gun violence.
“Violent crime was already trending down from a COVID-era spike when Trump presented a picture of unbridled crime in America on the campaign trail in 2024,” CNN reporter Bram Sable Smith said.
According to Smith, the Trump administration has cut “$500 million in grants to organizations that buttress public safety,” following this claim.
This poses the question: how is the gun crisis in the U.S. going to improve if the current administration and the media do not prioritize change?
According to Smith, medical experts say that “gun violence is among America’s most deadly public health crises.”
“Nearly 47,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the U.S. in 2023, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” PEW Research Center said.
Violence has skyrocketed since then.
These statistics beg us to make change in our society.