The news alerts on my phone announce that multiple people have been shot at Brown University. Nobody knows much. The students are hiding in place, no doubt terrified. The police are frantically looking for a suspect — despite earlier reports that there was a suspect in custody. (This premature ‘celebration’ happens often. How can you get something that wrong?)
The BBC reported:
(Update. There are 2 dead and 9 critically injured. 'Person of interest' is in custody.)
Multiple people shot in Brown University area, police department confirm
Providence police department confirms that multiple people have been shot in the area of Brown University.
It adds in a post on X: "This is an active investigation. Please shelter in place or avoid the area until further notice."
Now people wait to find out just how devastating the event was. A few injured? Or many dead? Politicians, pundits, and others wait to see if the shooter has expressed political views one way or the other. Republicans in particular are hoping for evidence that the perp is a Biden voter, an illegal alien, or at the very least was using a stolen gun.
.
If nothing else, they pray the guy (and it is almost sure it’s a guy) will prove to be demented or otherwise psychologically impaired so that they can blame mental illness, rather than the easy availability of deadly weapons. How this makes a difference, I have never understood. But it gives the gun lobby an excuse they can sell to the base.
.
Regardless, you can predict that nothing will change. The public has moved on from gun control. The Democrats don’t talk about it much (wisely, it seems — at least politically). The Republicans never wanted to talk about it. And the general population is resigned to living in a country where some demented individual has easy access to guns — few questions asked.
Guns or not, many Americans are homicidal. Unfun fact: If you remove gun deaths from America's homicide rate, that rate is still higher than the UK’s total murder rate. It isn’t that Brits are less violent than Yanks (see soccer hooligans). It’s just that dispute resolution over there ends up in the emergency room. In the US, it too often ends up in the morgue.
God, I hope no one is dead. But if it isn’t this time, it will be soon. Because too many people benefit financially or politically from the people being terrified, trigger-happy, and ready to buy evermore powerful (and expensive) guns. While also flocking to vote for expedient cynics who promise to protect their rights from gun-grabbing socialists.
Update
NBC reports:
Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are responding to Brown University, the agency’s Boston field office said.
“ATF agents are responding to the Brown University active shooter incident,” ATF Boston said on X.
The FBI also said it is assisting.
It’s good to know there are still federal employees available to tackle actual crime. It often seems is they are all harassing non-violent immigrants and American citizens.
