The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed, fostering apathy to finding solutions rather than galvanizing communities to act.
Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met this past week with family members of some of the 18 people killed in October at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine by a U.S. Army reservist who later took his own life.
He said people must not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life.
I mean that’s just the paradox of voting. One vote doesn’t “matter”, in the sense that elections with thousands to millions of voters are almost never decided by a minute number of votes, but the impact of contributing to a culture of “my vote doesn’t matter” is that people just don’t vote, enough to change the outcome of an election.
I vote and just assume in won’t do anything. That keeps my expectations low so I’m not disappointed and stop voting.