Shootings: An Endemic Evil in the USA

Writing about any of the ills occurring in the United States would be endless, especially after watching a recent video in which a young man on a motorcycle rides through the streets of Miami with an AK-47 slung over his back, fearing nothing and no one, because it's allowed and, ultimately, he is the danger.

This freedom for a civilian to carry a weapon is granted by the misinterpreted and then camouflaged Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, an action that nullifies the freedom of others because the reactionary right in power believes everyone should be armed, so mass school shootings are not surprising.

During the first half of 2025, more than 10,000 people have been murdered in that country, almost a thousand of them minors.

In short, it’s a society that surpasses the violence of Western movies, because it combines drugs, massacres, mafias, and contract killings.
Until a few years ago, this compendium of elements would have perfectly described the reality of several Latin American and African countries that in recent decades have been labeled among the most dangerous on the planet.

However, now the situation reveals the chaos and bloody atmosphere that erode American society, where gangs, drug trafficking, and organized crime overwhelm the state and disrupt order, leading to a violent environment where the rule of force and weapons prevail.

This climate of violence not only affects the quality of life of citizens but, at the same time, generates a chaotic environment similar to that of a hostile and insecure land.

The proof the latest in this bloody reality has been the murder of far-right political activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot in the jugular vein. A 22-year-old man identified as Tyler Robinson is accused of being responsible.

The murder of Kirk, 31, a blogger, ultraconservative Christian activist, podcast host, and supporter of President Donald Trump, was carried out at Utah Valley University just as he was speaking out about gun violence in the US and the mass shootings reported across the country, especially at children schools.

The murder of the far-right activist adds to the list of violent, politically motivated attacks rocking the US, which in the first six months of 2025 alone recorded at least 150 such attacks, a figure almost double the same period in 2024.

On the same day Kirk was killed, at least three other people, including two students, were seriously injured in a shooting at a high school in Evergreen, Colorado, more than 800 kilometers from the attack in Utah.

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Last August, two minors were killed and 14 were injured after an armed attack at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis.

Although mass shootings in public places and schools are not new in American society, their executions have left a lethal mark on citizens, even being included in dramatic media campaigns by human rights organizations and prompting academic institutions to implement protocols for generating emergency alerts.

One of the most controversial was published by the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, a nonprofit organization made up of families of victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, where 26 people were shot: 20 children and six teachers. One of these pieces shows children returning to school. Each child recounts how their parents prepared them and gave them a new tool to face the biggest challenge of the school year: gun violence.

EPIDEMIC

In 2023 alone, there were 565 mass shootings—armed incidents in which an assailant shoots, kills, or injures—and since then, there has also been an unprecedented cycle of violence and political crimes, such as the two assassination attempts against Trump in 2024.

Similar events included the murder of Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband; and the attack that seriously wounded Senator John Hoffman and his wife.
Another recent incident that demonstrates the dangers in American society was the brutal murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian Irina Zarutskaya, who was attacked in August after boarding a subway in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The young woman was violently attacked from behind by 34-year-old American Decarlos Brown Jr., who repeatedly stabbed her in the neck with a folding knife until she died. The violent scene was recorded under the gaze of other passengers, some of whom grabbed their cell phones to record the moment instead of helping.

The passengers closest to the crime, despite seeing the girl seriously injured, chose to flee, and moments later others tried to help her. While all this was happening, the murderer calmly walked through the car, changed his shirt, and leisurely exited the train.

Kirk himself, before becoming a victim, condemned the crime. "If we want things to change, it is 100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Irina Zarutskaya, because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 prior convictions to roam free on the streets to kill her," the activist said of the attacker, a homeless man with psychiatric and drug problems who served five years in prison and has an extensive criminal record.

This case, beyond the victim, also focuses on the violent environment in which the African-American attacker operates. His life was marked by a cycle of violence and social exclusion, a phenomenon that largely becomes constant through community revictimization.

This situation is aggravated by a lack of opportunities, poverty, drug use, institutional weakness, a lack of social care programs, the proliferation of criminal activity, and the absence of government, which fosters a hostile environment of confusion, disorder, and chaos, where police brutality also plays a dominant role.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff