As of today there have been 107 mass shootings so far in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive. On average this year, there has been a mass shooting in the United States every 30 hours.

Given how frequently these shootings happen, one can feel like a broken record talking about them. But it’s important to continually say what one believes to be the truth, especially in times such as this when the president is someone who — more than any other politician — exemplifies how big lies can become “truth” when endlessly repeated.

The country’s most recent mass shooting left one person dead and five injured in Florence, South Carolina. Yet again we are having the same tired conversations. On the right, the president says it’s a “shame,” but adds that he has an “obligation” to uphold the Second Amendment. On the left, we have the familiar calls for “common sense” gun reforms.

I was in elementary school when 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech University. I was in middle school when 26 were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. I was in high school when 49 were killed at the Pulse nightclub. I was in college when 17 were killed at Stoneman Douglas High School. And after I graduated, 21 were killed at Robb Elementary.

I think I speak for the vast majority of people in the U.S. when I say I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m sick of being desensitized to reading a number count next to the name of a school on the news. But I’m also sick and tired of having the same old conversations about mass shootings time and again; conversations between those who say there’s nothing to offer but “thoughts and prayers,” and those who will decry violence at home, but excuse it abroad.

I myself am a former gun owner who isn’t against gun ownership and who supports red flag laws. But red flag laws aren’t enough.

While I support discussions on who should be prevented from gun ownership and what guns should be kept off the streets, these discussions too often ignore a crucial question: why are these guns here in the first place? Just why is it that the U.S. accounts for 46% of all civilian-owned firearms on earth?

These guns did not fall from the sky. I reject that it’s some strange coincidence the most militarized country on earth is an outlier in mass shootings. It isn’t a coincidence the country that spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, just so happens to rank in the 93rd percentile for overall firearm mortality. I contend the root cause of the gun violence epidemic in the U.S. is the military-industrial complex.

In his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower issued warnings about the growing military-industrial complex. While Eisenhower can hardly be considered an exemplary historical advocate for world peace, his address proved to be a fateful warning. Indeed, the military-industrial complex’s “total influence” can be felt across this country today. The current gun violence epidemic is but one of the military-industrial complex’s “grave implications” that has come to fruition.

It isn’t enough to simply legislate what guns or gun modifications are legal and who should or shouldn’t own a gun, if we don’t seriously discuss how and why these guns got here in the first place.

I support red flag laws to fight the gun violence epidemic as I would support red flag laws to fight the country’s opioid epidemic. It would be a positive step to enact laws that prevent doctors from prescribing painkillers to “at-risk” individuals. But such legislation alone would be woefully inadequate to address the totality of the opioid epidemic. To address this epidemic, we’re required to fight against a healthcare system that puts profits over people and a legal system that affords the Sackler family — the founders of Purdue Pharma and Mundipharma — a sense of legal immunity that dimebag drug dealers can only dream of.

Similarly, addressing the gun violence epidemic requires a more holistic approach than what red flag laws alone can offer. It requires us to fight the political influence of the National Rifle Association; an advocacy group that cares more about gun sales than gun rights, as evidenced by their reaction (or rather lack thereof) to the police killing of Philando Castile and their support for gun control laws against the Black Panthers. It requires us to fight the political influence of war contractors from Lockheed Martin and to fight against the executives of companies like Smith & Wesson; companies whose sole purpose is to make a killing off of maiming and killing.

These fights require mass movements. In such mass movements, it’s necessary for us to make clear that mass shootings are a byproduct of the military-industrial complex.

Working-class people in the U.S. have waited too long for solutions. It’s safe to assume the vast majority of our working-class has either been impacted by gun violence themselves, or knows someone who has. We need more than conservative politicians who only have “thoughts and prayers” to offer us and who will blame gun violence on a supposed “breakdown of morality and faith throughout our culture.” We need more than liberal politicians who say they’re “filled with rage” over mass shootings and who will lecture conservatives that “you either care about protecting kids or you don’t,” only to then turn around and justify the deliberate killing of children in Gaza, Yemen, and elsewhere. And we need more than politicians who decry gun violence committed by “criminals,” but who justify the more than 1,000 deaths caused by police officers every year (as of writing, there hasn’t been a single day in 2025 in which a U.S. police officer hasn’t killed someone).

We need a political movement against gun violence in the U.S. made up of, by, and for working-class people. Only such a movement — one that isn’t beholden to gun lobbyists, war contractors, and imperialist foreign policy — can hope to meet the challenge of fighting and ending the gun violence epidemic.

As commendable as it is for politicians to fight for red flag laws and similar legislation, any effort to end the gun violence epidemic that doesn’t emphasize demilitarization and community control of police cannot fully address and fight this epidemic.

So the next time a mass shooting happens, I ask that everyone emphasize the military-industrial complex’s role in making the U.S. a country where we can’t go to a school or a movie theater without that faint voice in the back of our heads wondering: “Are we next?”

The opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the positions of the CPUSA.

Images: Ingraham High School students protest for gun control and mental health support by Amanda Snyder / Crosscut (cascadepbs.org); Guns sit on a rack at a gun show by VCU Capital News Service (CC BY-NC 2.0)