One is a Tragedy, Many is a Statistic
By: Margaret Freeman
February, 2023
On February 13, 16-year-old Luis Garcia was shot. He was a student at East High School, a soccer player, a son, a brother, and a core part of his community. A statement from the Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero described Luis as “a hard worker who did well academically, and who was always positive, caring and lived the East core value of Integrity”, but his life was senselessly ended when a currently unconfirmed person or persons shot him while he sat in his car outside of the school. In the weeks since the shooting, there has been an outpouring of support for Luis’s friends, family, and peers, but even louder than the love is the call for action.
Luis’s death is another in a long streak of killings by irresponsible gun owners. As of March 6th, there have been 100 shootings in 2023. There have only been 65 days. And, while this trend of shootings is something we have seen in previous years, people are getting more and more fed up with the lack of action from policymakers. Following the death of Luis Garcia, the Students Demand Action club of East, a national group of students working for gun reform, organized a rally outside of East High School to push congress to pass more laws in favor of better gun control. Students marched from East to the Capital where a group of students went into the chambers and watched the lawmakers work, with hopes of showing them the pain caused by these weapons and pushing for new policies to be enacted to prevent them.
While this tragedy awakened the community of East and other DPS schools, this issue extends far beyond Colorado. Across the United States, shootings continue to happen, in and out of school. Every time there is another shooting, people push for laws to strengthen the process of getting a gun, limiting the types of weapons people can have and advocating for more control over guns and other assault weapons overall. There have been some successes on the front of gun control with President Biden signing one of the first major pieces of legislation on the topic in many decades. This bill did not do anything to ban the acquisition of guns, but it did help to increase funding for school safety and crisis intervention programs. Despite these small victories, many Americans are adamant about their right to bear arms, making it harder to pass any laws directly hindering people's abilities to get guns. Individuals and organizations that value this second amendment right, such as the National Rifle Association, pose a significant roadblock to passing laws that could reduce these deaths, valuing guns over human lives.
Ultimately, while communities who have lost loved ones to this violence will forever feel its pain, as a nation, we tend to lose sight of that pain after a few weeks, until the next senseless act of gun violence occurs. In the words of Joseph Stalin (who we should definitely not take advice from about violence), “The death of one is a tragedy, a million is a statistic”. With all of the deaths from gun violence, most people only see the ever-growing number rather than the people we have lost. There are many groups continuing to advocate for this cause but as the numbers continue to tick up, the sole voices of these organizations alone aren’t loud enough to turn all of these tragedies into change.
So, for Luis, for Kelly, for Suncha, for every person who has or will be killed because of senseless gun violence, raise your voice. Email lawmakers, support gun control organizations, vote. Do whatever you can because not one more person should die because of a shooting. Not one. Period.
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