Shortly after the tragedy in Las Vegas I saw something on social media that posed a really depressing yet accurate view of gun violence in America. It went a little something like this: after a mass shooting or terror attack or other tragic, man-made incident, there is a wave of politicians and celebrities and ordinary people flooding Facebook and Twitter with #neveragain. But it keeps happening, again and again. And on that bright Monday morning when I first read the news of the tragedy, I, too, thought #neveragain. But as this one astute social media user pointed out, after the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, #neveragain means nothing. They raised the idea that, if the cold-blooded killing of dozens of children wasn’t enough to pass more restrictive gun control measures, then nothing else could be. Not Orlando, and not Las Vegas. At this point, it was argued, nothing could be done.

    As pessimistically accurate as that may seem I don’t believe that that was the end of #neveragain and its potential to enact change (in a ‘slacktivist’ kind of way) in our nation’s gun laws. Or, at least, I would not like to believe that. After the tragedy in Las Vegas there was bipartisan support for a ban on bump stocks, the device added to the weapons used by the shooter that made semi-automatic rifles shoot like machine guns. Even the NRA showed support for the ban at one point, and it was the first time that I could recall seeing any gun regulations even come close to changing following a mass shooting. However, just over a month later, that proposed ban has gone nowhere, once again lessening the impact of #neveragain and instead making it read like #neveragain...until the next time.

    With mass shootings, #neveragain is usually the extent of the action taken to prevent further gun violence. However, the vast majority of mass shootings are done by white men. This demographic is often branded by the media as either ‘mentally troubled’ or a ‘lone wolf’ or simply a ‘gunman;’ literally anything other than what they are–a terrorist. If someone, even if they are an American citizen, opens fire and kills 58 of his fellow countrymen, when all's said and done, is a terrorist. But is that the label that they receive? By the majority of the public it is not. The terrorists who committed atrocities at Sandy Hook, Charleston, and Las Vegas still have yet to earn that label from most of the country. And what do they have in common? They are all white.

    In contrast, the terrorist who committed an atrocity in Orlando was branded a terrorist almost immediately after it was revealed that he was a Muslim. Even more recently, the terrorist who drove a truck into a crown in Manhattan (who came to the US legally in 2010 and, while standing with terror group ISIS, does not officially follow any faith) was immediately branded a terrorist and was used as a scapegoat for President Trump to further push for the “extreme vetting” that he so famously spoke of in regards to his tough immigration policies. Within hours of the attack (which, as of print, has killed 8 people and injured nearly a dozen more) the President took to Twitter to express his disgust at the events, and later met with his Cabinet to discuss plans for changing the immigration policies that allowed the man into this country. It did not even take a full day for the gears to start turning in the Capitol to ensure that this #neveragian would actually ring true.

    After the events in Las Vegas a month earlier, the response was shockingly (or perhaps not) lax. Two days following the shooting he stated that his administration and Congress would “be talking about gun laws as time goes by.” The following day, October 4, when asked about the possibility of legislative action being taken on guns and gun control, he said that “we’re not going to talk about that today.”

    Not only does that beg the age-old question of “if not now, then when,” it also forces us to look at the larger racial dynamic in place here. Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas terrorist, was a white man, and a natural-born US citizen. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the Manhattan terrorist, a naturalized US citizen from Uzbekistan, did not receive the same treatment from the President, or from the public at large. Both committed horrible acts; one killing 58 and the other 8. Both are terrorists. So why is only one being acknowledged as such, and why is only one inciting a (unnecessary, may I add) change in how our country is run?