Gun violence: Two shootings, less than a week apart

Eight innocent lives were taken on Wednesday, March 16, in Atlanta, Georgia, and on Monday, March 22, in Boulder, Colorado, ten more were killed in a grocery store. The Asian community has been facing all sorts of prejudice in the United States since they started migrating with actions such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. This trend continues to this day. 

Ever since the COVID-19 virus first impacted the United States, Asians have been associated with the virus’s spread. According to Stop AAPI Hate, a nonprofit social group’s report, nearly 3,795 incidents have been reported since March 19, 2020. However, it is noted that this number is likely a mere fraction of the total number of attacks that have occurred. There have been mainly two types of discrimination against Asian Americans, with verbal harassment being 68% of incidents and shunning, defined as deliberately avoiding, nearly 21% of incidents. In the report, there were multiple testimonials and descriptions of some incidents that were reported. An anonymous victim noted how a white man catcalled them and repetitively yelled ‘Ch*nk’ and ‘C*nt’ after noticing they were of Asian descent. In another testimonial, one person was in a coffee shop, and people reportedly entered the coffee shop and sat on one side of the room away from them.

While verbal harassment and shunning have been the majority of the total incidents reported, physical assault has been the third most type of discrimination against Asian Americans. For example, in late January, a video surfaced across the internet of an 84-year old man who was brutally shoved to the ground during his morning walk around his neighborhood. Unfortunately, two days later, he passed away from the assault. Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist, mentioned how her “blood [boiled] through [her] veins’ after watching the video. In response to this event, she made an Instagram video, which eventually became viral, that expressed the most recent hate crimes against Asians. According to the NYPD, violence against Asian Americans has skyrocketed over the past few months. In a report, anti-Asian sentiment increased nearly 1900% by the end of 2020. As this violence has carried into 2021, major international organizations, for example, the United Nations, have strongly expressed the rising hate crimes. Following the Atlanta spa shooting in Mid-March, in which 6 of the 8 victims were of Asian descent, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for all halts to violence against people of Asian descent. 

Events like the recent shootings in Atlanta and Colorado not only shined a light on the ongoing discrimination, prejudice, and lack of humanity in society, but they also reignited the ongoing gun control conversation, and a debate in discussion since the very implementation of the Second Amendment with the right to bear arms. The situations in the last month depict just how lax or nonexistent gun laws genuinely are. In Atlanta, the shooter had just purchased the handgun before opening fire in the three spas he scarred. This was made possible by Georgia’s lack of a law requiring a firearm waiting period, which is used in ten other states as means of preventing such massacres Atlanta experienced firsthand and. Federal Laws even allowed the Boulder, Colorado shooter to easily get access on a Ruger AR-556 Pistol, which is incredibly similar to a rifle but is more easily accessible because it is technically a pistol. Such technicalities led to 18 dead and a community now living in fear of any one of them being the next victims. 

True reform and change starts with the people and ends just like that, and it is up to the people to control the narrative of the country they call home. It’s imperative to embrace one another as equal and continue the latest trends of shunning the undermining of others. Society is all dependent on what people do now in the times where those are most vulnerable.