Already, there has been over 450 shootings in the United States in 2023. That is almost on average two shootings per day. In United States society, shootings have become extremely normalized and something that is sometimes looked over. With all these shootings, it is still important to commemorate each and every individual lost to make sure their death wasn’t in vain.
Yet another shooting was on Friday August 18, 2023, and yet again it was another example of social injustice. At her clothing store in Lake Arrowhead, California, Laura Ann Carleton (66 years old) had a pride flag held up which is what unfortunately led to her death. Travis Ikeguchi (27 years old) was identified as the shooter and entered the store in immediate anger about the pride flag, yelling many homophobic slurs. This anger resulted in Ikeguchi fatally ending Carleton’s life. After this murder, Ikeguchi fled Carleton’s store (Mag Pi) by foot and was later killed in “a lethal force encounter” with deputies.
Officials said Monday that Ikeguchi had a history of making posts that were critical of the LGBTQ community and law enforcement on multiple social media platforms, including X, formerly known as Twitter. This demonstrates a long term resentment towards this community, which is a strong social injustice.
There are so many groups in society that are targeted and so many victims that are a part of these groups of allies. Society needs to reach a point of equality where everyone can be treated equally and fairly to truly achieve a level of peace and order. To do this, some approaches appropriate consist of stricter gun control across the US to help prevent from future shootings from occurring.
Ayan Kumar's Blog 