A gunman opened fire inside a ballroom dance hall over the weekend in Monterey Park, California, killing 11 people — marking the 33rd mass shooting in U.S. in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Six more mass shootings have taken place since then, according to the same source, including in Half Moon Bay, California, where seven people were killed.
Jennifer Carlson, a sociologist who teaches at the University of Arizona and studies American gun culture and violence, said that the aftereffects of gun violence carry on well after an incident takes place.
“It fundamentally alters people physiologically, psychologically, socially, financially, politically. This is not something that you come out of unchanged,” she told William Brangham in NewsHour’s recent documentary, “Ricochet,” about the trauma of gun violence. “In fact, that’s kind of why it’s traumatic — because a traumatic experience is one that shakes your understanding of reality, shakes the sort of coordinates of what you could presume about your sense of safety, security [and] standing in the world.”
If you or someone who know is dealing with trauma or having thoughts of self-harm, please call or text the national hotline for mental health emergencies at 988.
This post was produced and edited by Julia Griffin, Dan Cooney, William Brangham and Yasmeen Alamiri.
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