Crossposted from my personal blog, "News From The Front".
Via NBC:
A shooting at a mall near Portland, Ore., on Tuesday afternoon left three people dead, including the gunman, and at least one other person injured, police said.
Lt. James Rhodes of the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said the gunman shot two people to death and also died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Rhodes said another person was wounded with a traumatic injury and sent to a hospital.
Rhodes said police do not believe there was a second shooter.
Oregon Health Science University, one of two level-one trauma centers in the Portland area, reported that one person had been admitted to the hospital. Legacy Emanuel Hospital, the other level-one center, said no patients had been admitted as of 5:15 p.m. local time (8:15 p.m. ET)
The shooting, which occurred around 3:20 p.m., during the busy holiday shopping season triggered panic at the Clackamas Town Center in Happy Valley, just south of Portland. The shooting took place in the food court near the Macy’s. Those in line to get their photos taken with Santa immediately dove for cover, KGW reported.
A woman who answered the phone at Chipotle in the mall told NBC News that someone ran in and yelled, “It’s a shooting, it’s a shooting.”
Way too close to home, people.
Way too Goddamn close!
I have several friends who live in Portland. Audrey Walker, a local Portland Actress who I know from my old MySpace days tweeted tonight that she almost went there with her daughter to waste time before a meeting.
Way too Goddamn close!
And now the usual dance will begin. Someone will say, “Gee, you know it might be a good idea to figure out how to keep high caliber weapons out of the hands of unstable people.”.
And someone from the NRA will no doubt say that any conversation about gun control so soon after the shooting would be “Disrespectful to the victims”.
Let just say this.
If…and God/Buddha/Vishnu/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Cthulhu willing, this will never happen, (Although, right now, I ain’t that crazy about my odds.) I am ever killed in a mass shooting, I would not consider it disrespectful if you had a discussion about regulating the weapon that bought about my death.
And to put that in perspective, I would consider someone taking a big dump on the face of my still warm corpse slightly less disrespectful than the shooting itself.
In fact, let me get this on the record.
I, Richard Jensen, being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear on this date, December 11, 2012 that if I am killed in a mass shooting, you have my permission to have a conversation about how to limit the type of weapons like the ones that killed me.
I will not consider it an act of disrespect. At worst, I will not exist and will not notice one way or another. At best, I will be too busy trying to pass on my new home number to Moria Shearer.
In his screenplay for “Unforgiven”, David Webb Peoples gives Clint Eastwood the best, most accurate thing that anyone has ever said about murder.
It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
Having a conversation is no where as near as bad as that.