The United States has more firearms than people, and more gun dealers than McDonalds’s. What has humanity become?
We, as a community, are scared. We are angry. We are confused. The violence in our world is sickening. Will there ever be a change? Will it continue to get worse? These are the questions that loop in our minds as we watch our world crumble again and again. We cannot be expected to not be constantly anxious and terrified of what the world will become if events like these continue without any change.
According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tens of thousands of people in the United States are killed or injured by firearms each year. In the U.S., on average nearly 47,000 people die from gun-related injuries annually, including homicides, suicides, and deaths that involved law enforcement, which is the equivalent of over 120 deaths daily solely from guns. In the U.S. advocacy groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights organizations work to influence lawmakers and protect broad interpretations of the Second Amendment, often opposing stricter background checks or limitations on certain types of firearms.
With the recent rise of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, especially in Minnesota, we have seen countless acts of sheer violence spread across social media. Today, we see people of “authority” abusing their power–detaining people to meet a quota. We are seeing individuals being pinned down by ICE agents merely for documenting events that occurred in front of them. We are witnessing people who are supposed to protect us and serve us, destroy and take apart our communities, and they are using guns to do so.
Alex Pretti was a 37 year old intensive care nurse in Minnesota. On Jan. 24, 2026 during an ICE crackdown, Pretti was shot and killed by ICE agents. The Department of Homeland Security and administration officials claimed that Pretti approached ICE agents with a firearm and resisted, prompting them to use lethal force. However, while he had a gun on him, it was stored in a holster, untouched. Numerous videos and eyewitness accounts show Pretti holding a phone and not threatening the officers when he was shot.
The fact that Pretti was shot merely because he had a gun proves the ways that the discussion about guns in America is imbalanced. Pretti was a good guy who also legally had a gun, but it was used against him. We were taught that guns were a means to safety, but the administration used the fact that he had a gun–in a holster, not out–as the justification for murdering him. Now, all we associate guns with is violence.
Gun violence has become normalized. On social media, many of us witnessed the murder of Charlie Kirk within seconds after it happened. We saw Renee Good be shot and killed through the windshield of her car. We witnessed National Guard members flood a Brown University classroom during an active on-campus shooting. We saw families rushing to reunite with their elementary school children after a shooter shot through a church window at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Unfiltered, raw, violence. This is not normal, or rather, it should not be normal. With each generation, seeing gun violence becomes more and more normalized.
When violence becomes normalized, people become complacent about the fact that violence is a necessary aspect of society. Unfiltered violence has desensitized us to the point that action is necessary. Day after day, these events continue to happen in front of us, leaving us helpless. There are simply no excuses anymore. These shootings have been enabled by the NRA and Second Amendment Super Political Action Committee (PACS) that continue to push an amendment that was written during the time of muskets. Now, with technological advancements, the guns being used are assault rifles, typically used during warfare, not to hunt deer.
Now more than ever, we need to be vocal. We cannot keep pushing each and every one of these shootings under the rug and just hope for change. Change comes only when a community takes action. We should not only be sending thoughts and prayers and hoping the victims and their families “heal, ” but we should be speaking out and being vocal about the state of our world and the horrendous acts of violence that occur every day. We can write to senators, telling them that we will be voting in a few years and we WILL vote to replace them if change remains nonexistent. We need to organize walkouts and attend protests to ensure our values and voices are heard and acted on.
Gun violence is our reality until we, as decent human beings and citizens of the U.S., rise up against this administration and those before and after it, who refuse to enact more stringent gun laws. We cannot remain silent while people are dying. We need to make our voices heard, as our generation has grown up with gun violence as the standard news fare that we sadly have become used to. We should not have to live in fear and go through the horrors of gun violence.
