School Shooting in Denver, Colorado, Charlie Kirk has been Shot, Ukrainian Women Fatally Stabbed. These sorts of events, which tend to frequently dominate news cycles globally, shadow over the urgency needed to address and, especially, prevent criminal violence. Violence has been around for centuries; it never ends, and it never will.
Recently, with the COVID-19 pandemic, political stances, and social media, violence has been talked about more than ever, feeding into more violent actions every day.
THE PANDEMIC
Once the pandemic hit in 2020, social media statistics rose. 490 million people joined the social media bandwagon since unemployment rates dropped by 3.6%.
Since people were becoming unemployed and quarantines were being administered across the world, civilians’ anger also rose. The common calls for domestic violence, divorce rates possibly increasing, and cyberbullying becoming popular were all linked to the pandemic at some point.
The ORHS SRO, Officer Rameau, claimed that during the pandemic, with quarantine occurring, he had noticed a small difference in the number of domestic violence cases.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has become a huge source to report on all violence, whether we like it or not. Although it is always a big question as to why so much violence is occurring.
Officer Rameau claimed that local violence and crimes haven’t risen in numbers; they are just being reported more now than in years in the past. Social media has taken a huge leap and is a big part of violence as its own.
Officer Rameau continued by saying, “People take things off the surface and run away with it, rather than doing research about it. If people hear one thing and believe it, it’s harder to consider another opinion or truth.”
Taking those things into consideration, Mr. James Either, history teacher and leader of Oakmont’s Debate Club, also had a word or two to say about social media being a huge source leading to a lot of violence throughout the world. “Social media is huge with tribalism. It gets groups of people together who believe the same thing, but they’re all anonymous. They say things with no repercussions- creating big divisions politically and non-politically. It’ll only get worse.”
POLITICAL
Political violence has been around for centuries. Between the red and the left wing, especially. An example of political violence happened on September 10th- the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Someone from the opposing side shot Kirk just because he didn’t agree with his beliefs or words.
This isn’t the first time something like this has occurred.
Martin Luther King was known especially for his famous speech, “I Have A Dream,” along with many other actions and speeches. Since his strong beliefs had become very public, some people began to disagree. Later on, MLK was shot dead, standing on his balcony, by a man who strongly disagreed with him. Not to mention his race also contributed. This is a huge cause of violence all over the world to this day.
Upon interviewing the new Financial Literacy and Social Studies teacher, Mr. Daniel Costigan, at ORHS, he said, “Unfortunately, crime is a common occurrence all over the world. Although depending on political standpoint, some are taken heavier than others.” Something that also sparked interest while interviewing Mr. Costigan was when he claimed, “There’s a weird response when political killings occur, assumptions are big between the Left and Right wing.” After bringing up multiple crimes that happened politically and non-politically, Costigan ended the interview by ensuring there was no bias towards anything or anyone.
Another point that was brought up was that popularity overshadows other serious crimes.
GOING FORWARD
The world has been under plenty of crime before, and it’s still happening to this day. Some people would use a bullet if they don’t like their words.
The moral of this article is that bullets do not stop one another from speaking out. It brings a mandala effect of other crimes, having the bigger one to cover up the littlest ones. Each crime counts at the end of the day.
Violence is truly not worth it. We are all on the same earth, with the same oceans, the same land, the same social media, and the same political opponents. The world needs awareness of what is happening, to not let our opinions ruin others’ lives.
