Shots fired. People murdered. And the message is clear for Americans: The unrest has only begun.

For Americans, 2025 started with the same violence and destruction as usual — if not more.

When 14 people were massacred in New Orleans in a terrorist attack on the first day of the year, we thought it couldn’t get worse. On the same day, a cybertruck exploded in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas — a deliberate attack orchestrated by an active U.S. military sergeant. These attacks, violent and brazen, were only a glimpse of what was to come.

Within the first few days of the new year, there were six mass shootings, four of which occurred on Jan. 1. A shooting in New York left 10 people injured. Another shooting in a small town in Illinois left five people wounded.

But with the first two attacks dominating the news cycle, the shootings went largely unnoticed by both the public and the media. This marks a troubling trend in America: a growing desensitization to violence. And what’s worse is we are armed.

Yet, the problem isn’t just the guns or the weapons — it’s the environment.

In America, there are as many firearms as there are citizens. But it is not just the sheer number of weapons that should concern us — it is the purpose for which they are used. In many parts of the country, they are not tools of defense; they are symbols of power, pride, and defiance.

The U.S. is already one of the most violent countries that is not involved in direct warfare. We are living in a country of social and systemic chaos, plagued by religious extremism, political disarray, and widespread desperation. 

This is a nation in which politicians and civilians alike have become so accustomed to violence that when young men fire guns in an elementary school — on countless occasions — we barely flinch. It is a country that watched a mob of Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol in an attempted coup yet draws the line at peaceful protests for human rights. It is a nation divided by fear and rage, where the principles of justice and liberty are warped by hatred and ignorance.

A gun just enables the culture of violence in America that needs to be stopped rather than tolerated. It does not prove anything other than the fact that it has gone too far.

From increased security to background checks to police force, the U.S. government has tried to stop this violence, even if it happens after the fact. History shows us that repression alone does not end violence — it pushes it underground, where it mutates into something more dangerous. The New Orleans attack and cybertruck explosion are proof of this. 

An outbreak of violence is like a disease with each individual acting as a symptom of the problem. We must address the root causes of this instability: the lack of trust in institutions, the divide in our political and social spheres, and the proliferation of arms that make violence an easy answer to frustration.