Gun Violence is NOT a Political Failure
We need a cultural movement to end gun violence in this country.
Brown University, America’s Norm.
This weekend, a gunman opened fire on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, killing two students and wounding nine others during a final exam review session.
This tragedy was one of nearly 400 mass shootings in the United States this year.
So far in 2025, there have been at least 17 school shootings with injuries or deaths in K-12 settings alone.
Since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, there have been about 428 school shootings in the United States, according to one of the most widely cited counts. According to that database, roughly 394,000 students have attended schools where a shooting occurred during this period.
We now have a generation of students who have experienced multiple school shootings in their lifetimes.
Some of the young people on campus this weekend have memories of earlier violence. A Brown student who was wounded in the 2019 Saugus High School shooting found herself sheltering in place again this week. Another student survived the 2018 Parkland massacre.
We have failed these students. We have failed all 394,000 of them. And we continue to fail millions more.
This issue transcends politics and political parties. It goes deeper than that. There is a sickness in this country — a rotting core that accepts active-shooter drills and the massacre of students to preserve unfettered access to guns.
Yes, we need to pass stricter gun control laws. But gun control laws alone won’t solve this. We won’t be able to legislate our way out of a moral collapse. Politicians won’t save us here.
America needs to take a long look in the mirror.
Why, after twelve students were killed at Columbine in 1999, did nothing change?
Why, after twenty children ages six and seven were massacred at Sandy Hook in 2012, did nothing change?
Why, after seventeen lives were taken at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, did nothing change?
A cultural, not political, movement will be required to solve this problem.
Bondi Beach, Australia’s Outlier.
Twelve days after a 1996 mass shooting in Australia that killed 35 people at Port Arthur, the Australian government moved to enact sweeping national gun reform. Within weeks, Australia’s states and territories agreed to the National Firearms Agreement (NFA).
The NFA established:
Comprehensive firearm registration and licensing requirements nationwide (administered by states and territories under a common framework)
Mandatory waiting periods for purchasing firearms (typically around 28 days, depending on the jurisdiction)
Strict licensing standards, including a genuine-reason requirement and background checks
A near-ban on civilian ownership of semi-automatic and automatic rifles and shotguns
The results were stark. Gun-related homicides declined, and mass shootings effectively disappeared for decades. Multiple studies show that Australians’ risk of dying from firearm violence fell by roughly half in the years following the reforms.
The anti-semitic attack this weekend at Bondi Beach is an outlier in Australia, not the norm.
Australia is not perfect. There is still violence, and there are still guns. But Australians do not experience the routine, large-scale mass shootings that define life in the United States. The NFA was a successful law, but it worked largely because it was paired with a cultural shift that made it effective.
Before 1996, Australia had repeatedly failed to pass meaningful gun reform. Firearms were deeply embedded in parts of the country’s national mythology, particularly in rural areas. Port Arthur changed that. The massacre shocked the nation into action.
Public polling in the aftermath showed overwhelming support, often cited at 80–90% or higher, for stricter gun laws. Contemporary accounts and later academic reviews consistently credit public outrage with creating the political conditions for rapid reform. The prime minister at the time, John Howard, was a conservative. Yet his government pressed forward with sweeping gun legislation, backed by broad public support, within days of the shooting.
As part of the reforms, the NFA created a temporary national gun buyback for weapons that had been legal but were newly banned. Roughly 650,000 to 680,000 firearms were voluntarily surrendered and destroyed, about 20% of the estimated civilian gun stock at the time.
For context, removing 20% of privately owned guns in the United States would mean taking roughly 80 million firearms out of circulation, closer to 100 million under higher estimates.
If by some miracle the U.S. government passed strict gun reform, even banning assault rifles, does anyone seriously believe that 80 million firearms would be voluntarily surrendered?
America’s gun-violence crisis will not be solved by legislation alone. It will persist until a mass movement of Americans demands change. Until a critical number of gun owners decide that gun ownership is not a right, but a responsibility and a privilege. Until we reach a point where large majorities are willing to turn in their weapons voluntarily and stand behind stricter gun laws, what happened at Brown, Sandy Hook, Stoneman Douglas, and Columbine will happen again.
Students will continue to grow up rehearsing for their own deaths through active-shooter drills. They will continue to be traumatized, and too often, they will continue to be massacred in their classrooms.
America’s plague of gun violence is not just a political failure. It is a cultural one.
Sources:
Mass shootings in the United States in 2025 (total count)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025 Wikipedia
Education Week — school shootings with injuries or deaths in 2025
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2025/01 Education Week
School shootings since Columbine (Washington Post database PDF)
https://agreetoagree.org/content/uploads/resource-downloads/Washington-Post-Students-Experienced-Gun-Violence-School.pdf Agree to Agree
Gun Violence Archive (general mass shooting report page)
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?year=2025
https://agreetoagree.org/content/uploads/resource-downloads/Washington-Post-Students-Experienced-Gun-Violence-School.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.gunsafetyalliance.org.au/updates/the-impact-of-data-and-hard-facts/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6187769/
https://open.sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/9781743320310.html
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/gun-control-australia-updated/
https://www.gunsafetyalliance.org.au/updates/the-impact-of-data-and-hard-facts/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_%28Australia%29
Brown University shooting: Follow the blood money to gun violence profiteers
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/12/14/brown-university-shooting-blood-money-gun-violence-profiteers-vanguard-blackrock/