By Madalynn Rocha
October 1st- many see this as the day everyone’s favorite seasons begin. But on October 1st, 2017, the U.S’s deadliest mass shooting occurred in Las Vegas.
The gruesome events of the Las Vegas shooting are unbelievable. The gunman, Stephen Paddock 64 years old, opened fire on an country music festival around 10:05 pm. He killed 59 people and injured over 500. His motive, to this day, are still unknown. And that’s because after unleashing a merciless rain of fire, he died of a self-inflicted gun wound. Police did not know he had killed himself until they had entered the room around 11:20 pm; almost two hours after the ghastly shooting occurred.
In my short sixteen years, I have lived through four events titled “Deadliest Mass Shooting in US History”. Each taking place of the next. The last mass shooting that took a dozen of innocent souls was Pulse. A gunman open fire at a gay bar on June 12th, 2016; killed 49 and injured more than 50. Four years prior, on December 14th, 2012, a gunman open fire at Sandy Hook Elementary. He killed 20 innocent children and 6 adults. Before that, on April 16th, 2007 a gunman killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus. There have been a number of shootings between these; July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, March 21, 2005 in Red Lake High School, Red Lake, Minnesota, March 29, 2009 in Carthage, North Carolina, December 5, 2007 in Omaha, Nebraska. The most heart wrenching fact of these all is that these events do not even begin to scratch the surface.
How sad is it that at the age of sixteen, I can say I know of 166 guiltless lives taken. Some barely even had lives to live. And why? Because in our world today, anyone can get a gun. Anyone can walk onto a school campus, a movie theater, a mall, a church, a hotel, and numerous other places with a weapon. And when events like these take place, the world is shocked. Two plus two equals four, people. Easy to get, easy to conceal, easy to accomplish. It’s sickening.