New Orleans Shootings Spike: Why Aren't More People Bothered? | Opinion

america's history of mass shootings
Candles commemorating victims of a Connecticut elementary school shooting. Noah Berger/Reuters

New Orleans in late summer, with searing heat in the low 90s and thick, Gulf moisture, can agitate even the most patient of people.

In late July, with the heat index near 110, the city known as the Big Easy had turned a little crazy. It suffered a rash of deadly, unrelated shootings, scattered without apparent pattern.

The numbers are shocking, even for a city known for its crime: 34 people shot, seven killed, in 17 shootings over two weeks, in one of America's most celebrated tourist locales.

Two weeks.

That's worse than Parkland. In fact, it's worse than most of the mass shootings in recent years across America. It got so bad that, after yet another shooting this past weekend, in the parking lot of a strip mall, police and city officials spoke up, begging for an end.

"This week we've had shootings into crowds, we've had shootings on roadways, and we've had burnt bodies and we've had child victims," New Orleans City Councilman Jason Williams said in a press conference. "This recent rash of violence is disturbing and distressing. We as a community must demand better, and we must do our part. A safer New Orleans depends on it."

Consider some of the carnage:

A man shot his nephew over a family argument. An 18-year-old man, walking with a woman, was shot in a drive-by. An 8-year-old boy was shot in the back while he slept inside a house (authorities believe it was accidental). Three were killed and seven injured when someone fired a shotgun, and a handgun into a crowd gathered outside of a business three miles from the French Quarter.

The list goes on.

Many of the shootings merited nothing more than the occasional headline. But when nola.com brought them together, the scale of the problem became clearer. It's too much for any American city. Let alone one that gets 18 million visitors per year.

"I loved going to New Orleans for many years," said one commenter on nola.com. "It looks like last year will be my last year. I would come back, but no one I know wants to go back because of the seemingly non-stop violence."

Most of the shootings involve handguns, not high-powered rifles like those wielded in mass shootings.

But the larger story is this: does anybody outside of New Orleans care?

Mass shootings grab the headlines and the attention. But when gunshot victims fall one at a time or three at a time, it doesn't get the same ink. (Perhaps it's also worth mentioning that the majority of the shootings have involved minorities.)

Perhaps, like the spate of shootings in Chicago, these killings would get more attention if those murdered were white, or white tourists.

A murder is murder. A life is a life. But gang-related shootings, minority-on-minority shootings, don't get the quite the same attention as Parkland, which remains a hot button issue months later.

It's nothing new for New Orleans, either. In 2016 the city had more shootings than Chicago, per capita.

It's just something people see as a part of life in New Orleans, or Chicago, or even Jackson, Mississippi.

That's a cultural problem, both for those doing the shooting and those looking the other way.

David Magee is a contributing editor and the author of a dozen books, including The Education of Mr. Mayfield.

Uncommon Knowledge

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