For my 32 year old daughter, the arguments over mass public shootings have all been the same. She was born in 1987, and by the time she was 12 years old, Columbine happened. You know what those in leadership roles in Government offered after Columbine?
The same thing they offered the parents of Sandy Hook.
The families of the victims of every single public mass shooting in the United States after Sandy Hook, too.
Thoughts and prayers.
Guess what? All the thoughts and prayers in the world haven’t stopped the carnage in the 20 years since Columbine. Then there are the other shootings before Columbine, reaching clear back to 1982; there have been 114 mass public shootings since 1982 (37 years ago), in 34 states.
The scarier part is that they are increasing in frequency and recent years have also seen a rise in the number of people killed in a single incident.
The worst of these cases was in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2017.
On the night of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. He killed 58 people and wounded 422, and the ensuing panic brought the injury total to 851. Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, fired more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The shooting occurred between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m. PDT; about an hour later, Paddock was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His motive remains undetermined.
From NPR on the reason this man decided to slaughter people from a high casino hotel room:
The absence of a single motivating factor is not unusual, according to the FBI. And it places Paddock within the typical profile of other mass murder shooters who are prompted to violence by a "complex merging" of various stressors.
There was no manifesto, no suicide note, nothing left behind to explain the attack, but investigators believe part of Paddock's motivation was his "desire to die by suicide" and to "attain a certain degree of infamy via a mass casualty attack."
Paddock, a retired Postal Service worker, accountant and real estate investor fatally shot himself as police arrived outside of his hotel suite on the 32nd floor the night of the attack. It was the single deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
So we are in the aftermath of a single day with TWO public mass shootings which left 31 dead and dozens injured in Ohio and Texas. What is the response to Media coverage of the white nationalistic screed left by the shooter who drove 10 hours to get to El Paso and wreak havoc and murder most foul, by the man who bears the title President of the United States?
He waits a day and shows up to a public appearance where he mumbles his way through a message which is supposedly telling the nation we cannot accept hate and violence.
Really?
That white nationalistic screed left on social media by the murderer of 22 people in El Paso contains the words spoken by the president in public rallies over the past several months.
From June 4, 2019
“Mexico shouldn’t allow millions of people to try and enter our country.” — Donald Trump
May 9, 2019
“This is an invasion!” — Donald Trump
“How do you stop these people?” — Donald Trump
“Shoot them!” — anonymous rally attendee in response
“That’s only in the panhandle you can get away with that, sir,” — Donald Trump in response to call of “Shoot them” from attendee of rally.
I congratulate each and every elected member of our Government, at any level, who has taken the time over the past few days to strongly call for Moscow Mitch (#MoscowMitch) to bring the US House passed bills on border security to the Floor of the Senate, so that they can start doing something about the carnage on our streets and everywhere shootings have taken place.
Brandon Friedman makes the map which shows the direct connection between the words which come out of the mouth of Donald Trump and the murderers who listen to him and then act (go read it on Twitter where you can enlarge and read it clearly).
So thoughts and prayers? Save those for the funerals of the people slaughtered by deranged (mostly) angry white men.
What this nation needs are more people like Beto O’Rourke, who at this dire moment is not shying away from speaking real Truth to Power:
So what can be done to reduce or stop this gun violence?
We can put Universal background checks into action, link up every law enforcement database in the nation and ensure that only those who should DO get to purchase a firearm.
Limit the number of shots any fire arm can hold to 10 or less.
Make bump stocks and any other addition or alteration to firearms which makes them more lethal illegal.
We can and should do all of that, and more.
But will that really change that much? Remember there are already over 300 million firearms in America. Silencers and tommy-gun canisters which hold 100-200 rounds are out there and available right now. No law will claw back those things and get them off the street.
But even worse, none of this will change the conversations which drive people to believe that they are entitled to own weapons of death — because they are right. In America today, anyone who is at least 18 can in almost every state walk into a pawn shop or gun show and plunk down some Benjamins and walk away the owner of a tool which they can use to take the lives of dozens or more in mere minutes.
The Dayton, Ohio murderer? The local police already patrolling the area for trouble (late night shift near bar closing time in the regions’s most popular nightclub/bar section of Dayton, the Oregon District) heard the shots and responded to the scene in LESS THAN ONE MINUTE. It’s why the shooter only killed 9 people. If it had taken them 10 minutes to arrive, it could have been a hundred or more dead.
There is a root of all of this evil and some people talk about it, but not the right people. Not yet.
Ask your elected public officeholders to begin the conversation about UPDATING the 2nd Amendment, change it enough to make buying and owning a gun MORE than just a status symbol for the ethically challenged. Change it enough so that no one grows up in America thinking that the Constitution WANTS them to have a gun, so they can go out into their town and decide if a total stranger should live or die. Change it enough so that it continues to affirm the original reason why they included it in the Bill of Rights (local people can and should be involved in a Militia which regularly trains in firearms use, care and maintenance); but stops the psychopaths who just want to slaughter at will from achieving their evil dreams.
Remember Parkland and every single incidence of Mass Public Shooting in America since 1982 and mourn the dead — and never forget that they SHOULD be alive today.
#AmendThe2nd so that it makes 21st century America safer, not less safe.