2020 has hardly begun, and we have already had a war scare. After a long protest at the US embassy in Baghdad, President Donald Trump saw fit to take extreme action and kill General Soleimani, the leader of the Quds forces. President Trump’s perception of danger posed to American lives abroad – and, perhaps, damage to American prestige – prompted him to take decisive action. This same readiness for action, however, is clearly lacking when the lives lost are here at home.

During this tumultuous month, we’ve seen 2,409 Americans that were shot have lost their lives to gun violence. It’s a high number when you consider that from 2001 to 2018, 14,792 US troops and contractors were killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Iraq War combined. The number of American lives that have been taken just this week is equivalent to 5% of the lives lost within seventeen years of war in three countries. The lives we have lost this week, however, were not on a traditional battlefield abroad. They were in the streets, in homes, and in public places; they were right here, within the borders of our own nation.

There’s a large gap between the emphasis our leaders place on the loss of life at home as opposed to abroad. Lives lost in other countries are devastating, but so are the lives lost in the national epidemic of violence. From 2001 to 2017, violence amongst our communities has claimed 554,773 lives. 49,163 of them were the lives of people under the age of nineteen. To give these numbers some context, the three US wars in the Middle East brought about an estimated 480,000 deaths. Gun violence has spilled into every facet of the nation, and few can say they haven’t known someone personally impacted by it. The worst part is that in many ways, the country has ceased to pay any attention to this war. The battle has raged for so long that people have become accustomed to the rising death toll. Indeed, there are moments when it grips the headlines and dominates the discourse, but, by and large, the wide-reaching problem fails to capture the nation’s attention for long.

America is plagued violence to which no other developed nation can compare, yet many accept mass deaths as the norm. Our leaders are guilty of allowing the same mentality to grip them. When Trump reacts with fury to an embassy being graffitied and protested, he ignores the lives that are taken right here at home. Senators like Marco Rubio, Cory Gardner, and Lindsay Graham have fallen in line praising Trump’s “decisive action” on killing Soleimani, yet not a single one will consider supporting gun safety legislation that we know will save lives in the war at home. Instead, they claim to be protecting Americans by hawkishly demanding more and more escalation against our perceived international enemies.

Source: Ethan Somers

Our “Land of the Free” and “Home of the Brave” rhetoric has leaders that focused on military intervention in another country while ignoring the catastrophe here at home. As we call on these same leaders to lead us to peace instead of war, we need to recognize as a country that we must establish peace in our own nation as well. It is necessary for future leaders that claim an end to the never-ending wars, that such a promise must be applied to the violence at home. In the pursuit of peace and security from our threats abroad, we must not neglect to obtain it here.

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Ethan Somers Website Ethan is a Community Organizer who works with Giffords, Guns Down America, and 50 Miles More. His passion is to work with youth activists and find ways to support young voices in every issue. Outside the political sphere, he is a student at the George Washington University, pursuing a double major in history and philosophy. Find more from Ethan at ethanjsomers.com Stephanie Lee

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