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By Katie Neustaeter

REFRACTION

NEUSTAETER: Our Acceptance of Gun Violence Will Kill Us

Jun 23, 2019 | 2:15 AM

Today, as I write this, the sun is shining, the TV is off so the world seems quiet and the last thing I want to think about is gun violence. But the fact is that just because we aren’t talking about people being shot, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

There were millions of Canadians cheering the Raptors on to victory and celebrating their win; our country, our team and our year; so what a shame that, in stark contrast to everything we represent to the world as Canadians, a shooting is now inextricably linked to that hard-earned victory.

On Monday, June 17, people joyously gathered in downtown Toronto to celebrate the Raptor’s NBA Championship win. But in the midst of that revelry four people were shot, causing mass chaos, fear, pain, and sadness during what should have been a unifying event.

In the days that followed I have felt that the significance of that shooting was too easily shrugged off by too many. Almost as if shootings are something that is to be expected whenever people gather together.

After every shooting that’s “significant enough” to blip on the public radar we hear that it’s ok to send our “thoughts and prayers” but it’s “not the time to talk about it”, so the question repeatedly becomes “when is it time to talk about it?!”, because in between mass shootings those same voices seem to remain consistently mute.

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To a small degree I understand why something like the shootings at the Raptors parade was not given a larger spotlight. Not only is it inconvenient to change our systems, uncomfortable to admit it’s no longer an abnormality, difficult to dig to the root of the problem and complicated to hold people accountable, but it’s also very unpleasant.

We don’t want to take away from the triumph of something like the Raptors’ victory or tarnish the celebration by giving the shootings too much attention, and there’s validity to that.

It bothers me deeply when the names and faces of shooters are elevated to infamy through abundant publication and glorified through repetition. I don’t want to memorize their names and I don’t want to see their faces; I want to hear the names, see the faces and know the stories of victims. I don’t want to give the people who feel it is their right to rob the lives of others a single minute of public attention or memorability.

But do you know what else I don’t want to do? Normalize, minimize or accept gun violence as an expected part of our daily lives and culture like we have seen happen in other countries not so far away.

A shooting during a peaceful gathering should be shocking and should rock us to our core, but most of us can tell you that in the daily barrage of gun violence in North America we’ve begun to lose track of when the last mass shooting even happened.

As much as we Canadians love our neighbours and often follow their trends (ie. in fashion, restaurants, business chains), there are many ways in which we do not want to follow replicate their culture, and gun violence is at the top of that list. We must, therefore, be proactive in fighting the acceptance of gun violence as the norm.

So I’m begging you, Canada, don’t let this be our normal too; don’t let this become us.

10 people shot at a nightclub last week in Pennsylvania? Who knew?

4 people, including two children, shot last month at a mall in Louisiana? Just another day.

40,000+ incidents of gun-related violence in the USA last year? Sounds about right.

A quick Google search will return thousands of statistics about gun violence in North America, but the numbers have almost become superfluous in their abundance. We can see that the curve of gun violence seems to be endlessly bending upward and we must not allow our apathy to rise with it.

I’m not anti-gun. I grew up in a hunting family that needed the meat, honoured the animal and respected the weapon.

I’m not anti-gun.

I’m anti-pretending it’s normal for people to be shot in the street with weapons no one has need of, for reasons that hold no water and I’m scared that we too are beginning to accept it as normal, unavoidable and just how it has to be.

We don’t have to look far to see that, as surely as the weapons themselves, our acceptance of gun violence will kill us.

So let’s not cherish our handguns more than our children, our automatic weapons more than our neighbours and our imagined freedoms more than our community.

We don’t have to let violence from a few overshadow the peaceful celebration of the many, but we do have to be aware, wise, proactive, and more determinedly Canadian, while refusing to accept gun violence as normal.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.