The saga of American gun violence continues this week. Early Sunday morning, yet another person lost their life in an act of gun violence, and four others were injured, one seriously. The incident unfolded across the street from Auburn University in Alabama, late into the night after students had been celebrating a football win. Authorities shared that an altercation is believed to have immediately preceded the shooting.
In a news release, Auburn police explained:
‘Preliminarily, information has been obtained that an altercation occurred just prior to an exchange of gunfire that resulted in the injuries. The incident remains under investigation and is not believed to be a random shooting.’
There’s no apparent word from authorities about a suspect in the incident, only the ages and hometowns of the victims. The deceased is a 20-year-old man from Tuskegee, while the three wounded with non-life threatening injuries are a 17-year-old male and a 19-year-old female from Opelika and a 21-year-old male Auburn University student from Hilton Head, South Carolina. The victim reported to have life threatening injuries is a 16-year-old male from Opelika, which is near Auburn.
The victims join thousands and thousands of others who have suffered at the hands of someone with a gun in the United States this year. As of late morning on Sunday, the Gun Violence Archive reports that 10,050 people have been killed by guns in the United States (not including suicides) and 19,758 people have been wounded since January 1, 2018. (Their data includes the weekend Auburn incident.)
Going into the midterm elections later this year, the future of gun violence in the United States is one of the items on the table. Republicans have firmly established themselves as committed to “gun rights,” with repeated high profile right wing interests shunning those who dare make their voice heard in support of gun violence victims.
In a viral moment from President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings last week, the judge even refused to shake a father’s hand who’d lost his daughter to gun violence at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February.
During his career as a judge, he’s made his allegiance to the cause of gun violence clear through means like seeking to relax restrictions on semi-automatic weapons — the gun of choice for mass shooters like the attacker who took on that Parkland high school.
In the wake of that high profile school shooting, survivors and their allies have taken to pressing for renewed civic engagement ahead of the midterms. Florida youth voter registration skyrocketed in the wake of the shooting, leading to a turnout in the Democratic primaries held recently in the state not seen in decades. Parkland students took their voter registration campaign on the road this past summer, holding voter registration drives in dozens of cities across 20 states.
Plenty of other interests are on the voter registration beat too; former First Lady Michelle Obama, for instance, will be helping “When We All Vote” push their agenda with events in places like Miami, Florida, and her husband Barack recently pressed his listeners to vote in his most political speech since leaving office, delivered last Friday.
It all adds up to a potential conclusion to Republican efforts to protect gun violence.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
