Chrissy Stroop: What young Americans really think about guns

Since my openDemocracy column in late April about gun violence in the United States, there have been more than 250 mass shootings in the country, bringing the total for the year so far (as of yesterday) to 430. That’s just shy of two mass shootings a day for 2023 so far.

One recent incident took place in the small city of Muncie, Indiana, home of Ball State University, which happens to be where I did my bachelor’s degree 20 years ago. On 30 July, an assailant began firing into the crowd at a late-night block party, killing a 30-year-old man and sending 19 other people to hospital. I’ve only been back to Muncie a few times since 2003, but when a mass shooting occurs in a place you know, it hits close to home.

Of course, the stress I feel over the epidemic of gun violence in the US probably pales in comparison to that felt by many younger Americans, for whom school shootings have occurred far more regularly than they did in the 1980s and ’90s, when I was in school. Back then, in central Indiana, our teachers led us through tornado drills. Today, schools practise active shooter drills (although it is worth noting that advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety recommends these are discontinued, given that drills can be traumatising and there is no evidence that they are effective at preventing gun violence). School shootings, which account for 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States, are, of course, a kind of terrorism. And the fact that they occur at all is undoubtedly terrifying.