Stats show long it usually takes the world to stop caring after a mass shooting
We first published this article after the Orlando shooting in June 2016. Remember that? Yeah, we all eventually stopped talking about that one too.
So we're republishing this to highlight how quickly shootings are forgotten about after last weeks Florida school shooting that saw 17 lives lost.
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It feels as though every single media outlet in the world is currently on the Orlando mass shooting.
Unfortunately though, with time the media will stop reporting, and the discussions around gun violence will stop. Until the next shooting.
In a not-too-distant future, the devastating act of terrorism at Pulse will just be another normalized act of violence, but exactly how far away is that? If you're going off Google Trends, it will be about two months.
Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress Action Fund charted the search results for all of the past mass shootings like San Bernandino, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, and found that's about how long it takes for terms to die down in the search engine — eight weeks.
Obviously, Google search results don't project if we personally stop caring, but this graphic is still pretty telling.
This just shows that the shelf life of our willingness to care about the issues of gun violence lasts only 8 weeks.
Maybe, just maybe, this time we can remember not to forget.
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