The worldwide lockdown because of coronavirus outbreak has seen a number of silver linings - from a drastic drop in air pollution levels in a lot of places across the globe, to animals coming out in open space. But what is possibly the most heart breaking silver lining of this pandemic, has been witnessed by the USA.?
Reportedly, March 2020 was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting in the US.?
The observation was made by Washington Post reporter, Robert Klemko, on Twitter. He tweeted, ¡®Last month was the first March without a school shooting in the United States since 2002¡¯.
In the tweet thread, he went on to list credible sources for this information. He also answered people who said that Wikipedia does not list several March(s) since 2002 as having recorded a shooting; he reminded them that Wiki is not a trustworthy source of information, and to help them out he listed a number of them.?
Several people were shocked to read this piece of information, realizing that it took a pandemic and a halt on education (by shutting down of schools) for such a?heinous and destructive act to stop.?
According to a website, every year, 7,878 children and teens are shot in the United States.?New York Times reporter Annie Karni replied to the tweet, ¡®Depressing on mulitple levels¡¯.?
¡®Heartbreaking statistic¡¯, tweeted the Wall Street Journal's Robbie Whelan in reply.
Schools in the US were asked to shut down in mid March to contain the spread of coronavirus which has infected over half a million Americans and killed over 23,000.?
"All it took was a pandemic and closing all the schools," Bloomberg editor Mark Gongloff tweeted.?
Even though there were no school shootings in the month of March, the sales of guns and ammunition were the second highest on record. While in countries like Australia, people lined up to stock up on toilet paper, in America, shocking visuals of people queuing up outside gun and ammo shops surfaced. Americans were stocking on guns in the midst of a pandemic.?
'When this pandemic ends and we emerge from this physical distancing reality, the guns will remain.Will there be increased mass shootings, school shootings, shootings at home, at work, at concerts?' Guns Down America executive director, Igor Volsky, tweeted.?
It is indeed distressing that it took for students to be locked up inside their homes for a shooting to not take place; this raises serious questions about their safety in schools.?
Fb Image credit: The Wall Street Journal