With disbelief, I watched the press conference from the city of Gilroy, California, where the mayor, the police chief, an EMT official, and the head of the San Francisco FBI office laid out the facts as they understand them to be right now regarding the shooting that took place at the town’s garlic festival yesterday. Here’s where we are:
- Three people were killed: a 6-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, and a man in his 20s. Police have declined to name the victims, but Alberto Romero of San Jose says his son, Stephen Romero, was the youngest victim.
- Romero’s wife was also shot, and her injuries are being treated. She was one of 12 injured in the shooting.
- The 19-year-old alleged shooter legally purchased a variant of an AK-47 in Nevada in early July.
- Police said they engaged the shooter within one minute of the first shot. That means he shot 16 people within the first minute.
- The shootings appeared to be completely at random. Witnesses said he seemed to be firing in the areas where the largest crowds were gathered.
- Police had initial reports there was a second person involved, but that had not yet been confirmed, and the possibility of a second suspect was still being aggressively investigated.
- Jack Van Breen, who was onstage with his band Tin Man, said he heard someone yell out to the shooter, asking why he was doing this. The shooter replied, "Because I'm really angry."
Before the shooter’s Instagram profile was taken down, he posted from the account just minutes before he went on his shooting spree. The Daily Beast reviewed his account before it went down, and here’s what it found: The shooter sent a message saying, “Ayyy garlic festival time. Come get wasted on overpriced shit.” He also posted some suggested reading, a book about white supremacist ideology.
Soon after, he posted a picture with a caption that told followers to read a 19th-century, proto-fascist book. The book, which is repeatedly recommended alongside works by Hitler and other [fascists] on forums like 8chan, is full of anti-Semitic, sexist and white supremacist ideology. The book glorifies “Aryan” men, condemns inter-marriage between races and defends violence based on bogus eugenicist tropes.
There is one more escapable fact that we cannot ignore: THIS WAS A PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY.
There is absolutely no scenario in which a troubled 19-year-old should be able to waltz into a gun store to buy a weapon of war. A 19-year-old cannot legally rent a car. A 19-year-old cannot buy beer. Very few hotels would rent a room to a 19-year-old. And yet, a 19-year-old full of rage can walk into a gun store and buy an automatic rifle, loads of ammunition, and a bulletproof vest and only weeks later murder people in cold blood.
Where were the mental health services for the shooter? How can we identify these kids and get them the help they obviously need? Most, if not all, have shown warning signs. Hell, walking into a gun store and wanting to purchase an automatic weapon, a bulletproof vest, and a load of ammunition is the clearest red flag of them all.
I, for one, am sick and tired of acting like the Second Amendment came from God, etched on stone tablets, and can never be altered. Our founders never could have imagined our modern society, full of weapons of mass destruction. Our founders never could’ve imagined computers or cell phones or air conditioning. They hardly could’ve imagined 44 million people living in California or AK-47s and bulletproof vests. Our founders repeatedly changed their own rules of governance and made room for more rights as time went on. They would’ve evolved on this issue, and so should we! Why are our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness less important than the Second Amendment? This tragedy was preventable! California bans automatic weapons, but nothing prevented the alleged shooter from driving across the state line into Nevada and buying whatever he wanted. This is why we MUST pass a federal law banning automatic weapons.
It’s a national shame that nothing was done, at all, after another troubled young man of roughly the same age walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and murdered 20 children between 6 and 7 years old, along with six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
More than 40,000 Americans die every single year due to gun violence. In recent years, far too many angry young men, mostly young white men, are taking their anger out on innocent victims with the most violent weapons available—weapons they have full, unfettered access to nationwide. If we aren’t safe attending a garlic festival or a concert or kindergarten, what are we doing as a society?
We have to do something. We have to act. The time was yesterday.