All hope is lost

If “all hope is lost,” then there is no longer any chance of success. You typically use this phrase when there is initially a chance for success, but then the possibility of succeeding gets smaller and smaller, until it reaches zero.

Imagine you go on a job interview. You know the job is a little above your qualifications, but you still have some hope you might get it. But after the interview, you know you did horribly: you couldn’t answer any of the questions. Then, you might say “all hope is lost.”

On today’s current events lesson, we asked this about gun violence in America: “Is all hope lost?” What we meant was, “Is there still any possibility of reducing accidental gun deaths in America?”

Part of the answer is that companies like Biofire are trying to make guns safer for the people who own them. We didn’t say this in the lesson, but public awareness campaigns, more effective laws, and better mental health care can also help reduce accidental deaths and suicides. For that reason, not all hope is lost.