Gen Z. Who are they? They marching against Palestinians… or against Israel… or is it Hamas? Have they had to participate in one too many “active shooter drills” in their educational past? Are they the ones who have most of those nasty student loans, or just the last batch of grads with the highest interest rates? What, they are having trouble finding a affordable place to live… maybe even without roommates for once in their lives. Their student loans are almost impermeable to bankruptcy relief, something every other US debtor is entitled to. They fear so much today. Political instability today is where violence is routine and acceptable. Irreconcilable differences among and between moderates, progressives, conservatives and rightwing extremists. Hard to believe that denying medical science and climate change science is so prominent in our nation.
Racial intolerance. Gender differences generating conflict… as least among older Americans. Laws and rulings made by elderly legislatures, mostly comprised on men, and rightwing courts that severely restrict their reproductive rights and limit a woman’s control of her own body. And guns – open carry, concealed carry, assault weapons, stand your ground laws, mass shootings, cops who resort to force too easily... Despite the notion of America as a mobile society, with families dispersed across the country, even overseas, or as Sarah Bregel, writing for the November 17th FastCompany.com, tells us, dispelling that assumption:
“Many Americans don’t often leave America, unless they’re visiting Niagara Falls or eating pasta in Italy for a week on vacation. And many don’t move to other countries, staying very close to where they grew up. According to a 2019 survey of people over the age of 25, a whopping 72% still live in or near their hometown.
“But we might be outgrowing that desire to keep firm roots on American soil, or at least that’s true for Gen Z. According to a recent survey from Preply, more and more young people are thinking of leaving the country of red, white and blue, burgers and shakes, and—well, frequent gun violence.
“Preply, a platform that connects language learners to tutors, surveyed 3,000 Gen Z Americans on whether they wanted to become expats. When they were asked if they see themselves living outside the U.S., using a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very strongly), the average response was 3.1—meaning Gen Z leans more toward wanting out than staying in.
“The biggest reason by far that respondents cited for wanting to leave the U.S., at 25.6%: Other countries looked more appealing for better social programs like universal healthcare. That’s not hard to understand, given medical debt is a crushing issue for Americans. New cultural experiences (18.9%), cost of living (18%), and a dislike of American politics (17.7%) all played into the appeal of other countries, as well. But one factor that has become deeply and undeniably intertwined with American politics—gun violence—isn’t being ignored by Gen Z. A majority of respondents, at 59%, said it plays a ‘major’ role in their desire to leave the U.S.
“It makes practical sense that gun violence weighs heavily on Gen Z, as they’ve grown up with school shooting drills and an awareness of the threat of being killed in class, in a movie theater, at a concert. That’s why they’re sometimes even referred to as the ‘school shooting generation.’ More than any recent generation before them, they’ve been deeply impacted by gun violence, having lived through hundreds of tragic mass shootings, whether or not they witnessed the events firsthand. And the problem is not going away. So far in 2023, there have been more mass shootings than days, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and much activism comes from Gen Z, such as the organization March for Our Lives, which was started by school shooting survivors.
“The U.S. is certainly plagued by some important and unsettling issues, many of which are financial. For Gen Z, however, the survey suggests that gun violence seems to be the most pressing. It’s life or death, after all, and the statistics don’t lie. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for young people in America, putting it ahead of cancer, car accidents, homicide, and suicide.” And social media pounds all of this into their heads; there is no escape.
We are the only nation not at war with such a vast penetration of firearms, literally more guns among our civilian population than people. That reality is reflected in our murder rates, quantum leaps over other nations where guns are controlled or even banned. Common sense tells you that a gun – especially a semiautomatic assault weapon (there are around 30 million of those in the US) – is a vastly more efficient killing machine than a knife. And while guns themselves do not stand up and shoot people without someone pulling the trigger, people with access to guns (like those semiautomatic weapons almost always present in mass shootings) tend to ramp up homicide statistics far and away more than any other form of killing. As gun deaths increase, gun laws are increasingly lax.
Those Z-Gen most likely to leave are educated, able to take their skills to other countries where guns do not proliferate, where the schisms that are unraveling the United States of America can be avoided, where climate change is taken seriously, where universal medical care is normal (as with every developed nation except the US) and where hope still determines most people’s approach to life and the future.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I have to admit that if I were just graduating from college today, I would truly expand my job search to focus on safer countries where I too could hope for a better future than what I see young Americans facing now.
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