The continual conversation about gun violence hasn’t led to any major legislative change [2], but this type of violence has become simultaneously normalized and sensationalized. There’s been 327 mass shootings in the United States as of September 29th, 2025 (when I am writing this) [3]. We don’t hear about them. There’s too much else going on in the media – an onslaught of attention warfare.  

The media used to avoid giving attention to murderers. They wouldn’t even say their names. Now killers seem to be playing a game. Kids get radicalized in Discord chats [4] where they’re told they’ll be immortalized as heroes, and so they inscribe their bullets [5] with inflammatory phrases just to milk the media’s desire to point fingers at the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

I’m reading “The Tell-Tale Heart” and thinking about madness and murder. The narrator “loved the old man”, but he is obsessed with his eye – “the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it”, an “Evil Eye”. Every night for seven nights he takes a whole hour to poke just his head through the old man’s bedroom door to watch him sleep. 

We watch politics like the narrator watches the old man, voyeurs hiding behind a digital door. There must be something pleasurable in the watching, otherwise we’d stop. Does it feel good to get angry? Are we indulging our primordial rage that drives this “us vs. them” mindset? 

The terrified old man stares unseeingly as the narrator “grew furious” watching his “wide open” eye. Are we watching our own anger reflected back at us? 

I am afraid that if we keep watching, our anger will grow inside us and consume us like carrion, until we cannot see each other’s humanity and we leap into mad, murderous action.

Sources:

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-mass-killings-colorado-1993-2022-rcna58348

[2]  Congress under Joe Biden did pass the Comprehensive Firearm Safety Act, which instituted universal background checks and banned semi-automatic weapons. However, Trump has tried to reverse this legislation with a recent executive order.

[3] https://edition.cnn.com/us/mass-shootings-2025-vs-past-years-dg

[4] https://www.newsweek.com/tyler-robinson-charlie-kirk-discord-messages-2131068

[5] https://time.com/7320356/bullet-inscriptions-ice-shooting-charlie-kirk-assassination-unitedhealthcare/