Editor's note: Anthony Moretti is an associate professor at the Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership at Robert Morris University. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

One of America's enduring myths is California. A state where seemingly any dream can be fulfilled; a place where the sun always shines; a society that supports a lifestyle of fun. 

Over the past few days, California has instead become known as the latest place where people die by the gun; and the deaths have affected every part of the state.

First, on January 17, in the small central Californian town of Goshen, six people died inside a home, and one assumption for the killings is organized crime. Two of the victims were a 16-year-old girl and her 10-month-old son. 

A few days later, January 21, a Chinese New Year celebration in the southern California community of Monterey Park ended in bloodshed. Police believe a lone gunman, a man in his 70s, walked into a dance studio and murdered 11 people and injured about a dozen more. There is no clear motive at this point, and considering that police say the suspect killed himself, an answer as to why he went on a rampage might never become clear.

Mere hours after that, police in the northern California town of Half Moon Bay say another lone gunman killed four people at a mushroom farm and another three people at a nearby location shortly after that. Police continue to search for a motive, and they are focusing on the potential for workplace violence.

In short, three shootings in California over roughly seven days that left 24 people dead.

California, whose motto is the "Golden State," seems more like a "Ghastly State" at the moment.

As you might expect, the residents of these three communities are all saying very much the same thing: What happened is horrible, and something has to be done to address America's death-by-gun culture. 

As for the rest of America? A shrug of indifference.

One explanation as to why there has been no national moment of reflection (and there will not be one) and no commitment from politicians to address the multiple reasons gun deaths are so prevalent in the country is that Americans have come to expect mass shootings. Whether they have stopped caring about the victims or believe there is nothing they can do to change what is taking place in all corners of their nation, Americans' response to news of the latest gun violence is akin to driving over a speed bump – there is a momentary reaction as the car rises and falls, and then everyone moves on. 

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were more than 600 mass shootings in the United States in 2022. The most deadly event last year occurred in May in the small Texan town of Uvalde, where 19 elementary school students and two of their teachers were killed by an 18-year-old man, who first shot his grandmother before going to the school. The death toll was the third highest at a U.S. school or college, and the shootings happened just 10 days after 10 people were murdered at a Buffalo, New York, shopping center. The murderer in Buffalo had previously expressed admiration for White supremacist ideas, and all of his victims were Black.

More than 20,000 Americans are believed to have died from gun deaths, whether in a mass shooting or isolated incident, last year. That means almost 55 Americans each and every day lost their lives to a bullet in 2022. And not enough people are asking how such tragedy squares with another American myth – a country that boasts of its exceptionalism.

Was that figure of 647 mass shootings from 2022 the highest in U.S. history? No. In fact, 2020 (610 such shootings) and 2021 (690, the highest recorded number) also were years in which mass shootings eclipsed 600. We are less than one month into 2023, and the Gun Violence Archive has already reported 39 mass shootings throughout the United States this year. 

The death-by-gun culture seems unstoppable.

The archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four victims were shot or killed. Professor Carlos Cuevas, co-director of the Center on Crime, Race and Justice at Northeastern University, told the Voice of America that Americans needed to remember that a mass shooting "is a crime against a person but it is also a crime against a group." At this point, there is no group immune to the pain and fear of death. Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, the young, the old – all wake up every morning wondering if today will be the day gun violence affects them or someone they love.

Picking one data point out of many might seem foolish, but consider this: The New Yorker magazine reported the results of one academic study on gun laws in America's 50 states this way: "Gun-homicide rates in states with more permissive carry policies were 11 percent higher than in states with stricter laws, and the probability of mass shootings increased by roughly 53 percent in states with more gun ownership."

Sadly, that means nothing to the families of 24 people in California, where one of the strictest set of gun laws is on the books. National Public Radio explored why enforcing those laws is such a challenge: Litigation over whether some of those laws are constitutional and the reality that Californians will often buy guns in other states are just two. Those reasons and others guarantee that more mass shootings in the Golden, or Ghastly, State will happen. And the same grim reality is true in the 49 other states as well.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on Twitter to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)