The Villains of Our Country
By: Abigail Campbell
One morning in 2012, in a suburban town of Connecticut, families woke to get ready for their day. Both the children and parents expected that it would be a normal day. Unexpectedly, in the middle of the day, there was a mass casualty. Innocent children and teachers lost their lives. It was called a tragedy. In another part of the country, in New York five years later, a truck drove into a crowd of cyclists and pedestrians. The driver exited the vehicle and flaunted two guns around. After being detained by police, the police found ISIS flags in his vehicle, and that incident was labeled as a terrorist attack. But what’s the difference? They both had the same purpose: to create terror and chaos. However, one was a Muslim and proud member of a terrorist group, and the other was characterized as just a “deranged man," even though he committed acts of terrorism himself. There is no difference; one just carries the privilege of being White.
Around 3,000 people died on 9/11. It was the first major attack in America of the 21st century. An established group of Muslim terrorists planned to create terror and chaos and succeeded. It destroyed the lives and economy of Americans, leaving them vulnerable and bewildered. Since then Americans have created this ideology that terrorism is equated with being a Muslim or vice versa. Over the years, after 9/11, tensions formed against Muslims within the States. Tensions grew even more after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California of 2015. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" until lawmakers could "figure out what is going on." When he was elected president, “less than a month after taking office in January 2017, Trump signed an executive order that banned foreign nationals from seven predominately Muslim countries from visiting the U.S.” Muslims were denied entry to the country because they fit the description of what a terrorist looks like in the minds of Americans.
This ban, the travel ban (but really a Muslim ban), was supposed to be a sign that the current president, Donald Trump was fulfilling his promise of “Making America Great Again.” However, this overshadows and ignores a greater threat to America: domestic terrorism. In 2019 there have been 283 mass shootings, yet none of them have been addressed with a solution as promptly as the Muslim ban was. In fact, President Donald Trump does not seem adamant about considering these shootings to be acts of terror. He claimed, after the Odessa shooting, that “it is a mental problem,” implying that the suspect himself cannot be held accountable, or anyone before that, because they were controlled by a mental issue.
As you can see, the people governing this country prioritize what they believe could be a threat to the American people, Muslim terrorists, while ignoring immediate and dangerous threats like White Supremacists and Mass Shooters. On the controversial topic of guns and terrorism, there is a divide in the government, but the votes in the government point in favor of guns rather than the people. The sitting president chalks up domestic terrorism to mental illness, claiming there is no solution, but there is a solution, a solution that worked 25 years ago: The Federal Assault Weapon Ban. There was an attempt to reinstate it again by President Obama because he noticed the effect of guns in public, but his request was denied by Congress. Evidence showed that the ban reduced the amount of gun violence, yet no one is taking action. Is the government really looking out for the best interest of Americans or are they just concerned with targeting groups of people they don't like? What changed over the course of 25 years? Who is the real threat to Americans?