The words mass shootings have become far too common in the average American’s vocabulary. In the past three years, the U.S. has had over 1,800 mass shootings; defined as an incident where four or more people are wounded or killed, excluding the shooter. 

Growing up, I spent far too many nights curled up on the couch beside my family as we stared at the TV screen in collective horror. The days moved forward, but the content of the news did not- almost every week it seemed like there was a new tragedy regarding gun violence. We think the same thing each time it happens: “I can’t imagine what these people are going through” and “Thank god that wasn’t here.” Then we move on- until we face the tragedy in our own community. 

On October 25th, 2023, a man opened fire in a bowling alley and then a restaurant in Lewiston Maine. The incident left 18 dead, and 13 more injured. The gunman,  Robert Card, had an extensive history of mental health issues, including hearing voices and previously threatening to shoot up a military base. He was committed to a mental health institution for two weeks over the summer after “behaving erratically”. It was notable that he used an AR-15 rifle in this incident, as has been the case with many other mass shootings. 

Each time an incident like this occurs, the polarization of our political climate heightens. Searching for answers as to how something like this could have happened, people tend to either fault access to guns or the country’s ongoing mental health crisis. Many people become committed to the notion that there is one cause. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. There is no one answer to this problem. Mass shootings are not a result of one thing or the other; they are the culmination of hundreds of problems, twisted into one large, messy knot. To untangle it, we must examine not only mental health and accessibility to guns but also, poverty, addiction, racism, and the dozens of laws at play. 

Picking one side or the other is not going to fix the problem. To rectify this wrong we must be in constant conversation with each other. Debate with your neighbors. Discuss with your family. Be open to evolving your perspective and allowing others to evolve theirs. We all have the same goal; to minimize gun violence. Rather than endlessly claw at each other, we must find a way to combine our ideas. This is the only way to create meaningful change.