Within an hour of touchdown at Los Angeles International Airport and our initiation into the American milieu, the topic of firearms crops up. I’m idling at the terminal as my spouse trots our pair of tykes off to buy the universal fixer – a donut during our layover to New York. It’s not me who initiates the conversation, however, but a vivacious young lady camped across me. ‘There was a shooting just a stone’s throw away from my place of rest,’ she reports home via telephone. ‘No late-night entertainment for me.’
Soon after this introduction to one aspect of life in the States, we land at JFK Airport. The wheels of our numerous suitcases barely trim the turf of New York before another announcement about guns rings out overhead. A clear reminder that firearms do not belong in hand baggage rings out across the airport. Hoping on a taxi, we set forth for our temporary home located amongst the twinkle of city lights.
For a few days, we get lost in the charm of the bustling city preparing to bid farewell to summer. We’re strolling around Central Park, tallying squirrel sightings, meandering through the quaint by-lanes of the West Village, and absorbing the frenetic activity of Times Square. It’s as if we’re tourists exploring the city, rather than new residents trying to acclimate to our surroundings.
The city’s complexion changes as we step onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Flanked by throngs of perspiring sightseers, we snap pictures against the iconic New York backdrop. Later, with the Manhattan skyline as our backdrop, we savor cheeseburgers by the serene waterfront in Brooklyn. A calm surreal as compared to our residential quarters in Manhattan, where our nights alternate between the cacophonous symphony of police sirens and the random composition of a neighborhood trombone artist.
As the day turns into a hushed night after tucking the children in, the harsh reality sneaks up on me. A news report of a shooting incident in Brooklyn shatters the tranquillity of our early days. The casualty count stands at five as the day comes to a close, with one of the victims succumbing to their injuries.
As if this wasn’t a jarring initiation enough, tragedy unfolds on the same day my children are set to embark on their academic journey in the new city. A teenager wreaks havoc in a Georgia high school, leaving two of his peers and two educators dead in his wake. Days later, another incident in Kentucky reports five shooting victims.
The daily news bulletins we tune into chronicle the grim reality of the gun violence epidemic in our newfound home. The instances aren’t isolated to New York City alone, but span the entire breadth of this vast country.
On just the second week of school, I receive a notification from the school’s alert system. This message, which is a trial run of the system used to keep the school community informed during emergencies, triggers a slew of mixed emotions. As part of their safety measures, the children have performed a mock lockdown.
Our eldest, a nine-year-old, recounts her experiences that day. The door to her classroom was strategically obscured with paper, concealing the young learners from hypothetical threats. She and her classmates huddled noiselessly inside a storage closet for bags for what felt like forever.
I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be confronting the issue of gun violence head-on the very moment I set foot on American soil – An issue that dominates the media’s reporting around the country. The confrontations with this grim reality, however, refuse to cease. The heart-rending count of victims losing their lives to gun violence averages out at an alarming 47 daily, as reported by the Gun Violence Archive.
Indeed, a decline from 2021’s ghastly figure of 57 casualties daily is noted. However, apprehensions surge about the ascent of violence again as the nation gears for the elections in November. The country stands divided, and the looming jeopardy of escalated gun violence hangs heavily in the atmosphere.
Political leaders, irrespective of their alliances, seem hesitant, or perhaps incapable, of challenging the influential gun lobby or initiating a radical dialogue around the sacred right to bear arms inscribed in the Constitution. Sentiments of living in a country armed to the teeth are a stark reality we confront daily.
There are more firearms than humans in the U.S. and this truth ensnares us in its unsettling grip. A warm spring evening, sitting on the kitchen countertop, punctuated by a loud sound resembling a gunshot, sends chills down my nine-year-old’s spine. ‘Was that a gunshot?’ she questions, her innocence blinking in her eyes.
‘No, dear,’ I comfort her swiftly, ‘just a car backfiring.’ Evidently, the reality of gun violence in the United States has now inseparably embedded itself in our lives.