Mourning In America — Again
I had spent yesterday continuing to recuperate, cleaning, chatting with my kids, doing laundry, petting my cats, and writing about the murderer from last week’s mass shooting in Georgia.
So as I had been writing, I had not been watching the news for a few hours. Rudy came home and assumed I had already seen the reports out of Boulder. I had not. I finished posting the piece on Robert Aaron Long and set to catching up.
A mass shooting again. This time in Colorado.
Again.
That word. It wears a person down. Sitting here, I realize it is almost worn by a person because it cloaks me now, reducing my response to two heavy sighs, a setting of my jaw in anger, and the inevitable feeling of a sort of weary acceptance.
Again.
Innocent lives were brutally taken for no other reason than they were simply in the wrong place at the “right” time.
Again.
Ten families did not sleep last night, will not know rest again — at least not in the form they had come to know. The kind where you know your loved ones are safely at home, too.
Again.
Candles will be lit in vigil. A community will mourn in the dark.
Again.
Politicians, those who do have the power to effect change, will offer up rote “thoughts and prayers” on Twitter.
Again.
It will happen again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again, andagainandagainandagain…
Because this is what happens when a country simply doesn’t give enough of a shit to stand up and do something.
Again.
Those of you sitting at home in your tiny towns and hamlets, much like Boulder in Colorado, thinking, “Oh, that could never happen here”? Think again.
Every person who ever finds themselves staring into the camera lens after a tragedy echoes the same words, “I never thought it would happen here.”
No one ever does.
The problem is that “Here” is a moving target. “Here” is an equal opportunity destroyer. “Here” shows no allegiance to a single location. And “Here” likes nothing better than to sneak up and surprise an entire community.
At this writing, the details are far from complete. What they do know is yesterday afternoon, a 21 year old, armed with an AR-15, walked into a King Soopers grocery store, and began shooting. The shooter was ultimately apprehended.
But not before ending the lives of 10 completely innocent human beings and injuring more.
Police have released the name of the shooter — Ahmad Alissa — and the investigation continues as to who he is, his background, family, motives, etc.
In the end, that makes no difference.
Whoever this murderer was, he came, saw, deliberately unloaded his weapon, leaving only trauma, and no answers.
Not that any answer could ever justify the bloodshed and loss of innocent life.
Again.
Like you, my heart goes out to the myriad shoppers who now join the club of those who have survived a mass shooting. I physically ache for the parents, friends, relatives of all victims — as they desperately attempted to reach their children, spouses, BFFs to verify their safety. And I cannot begin to imagine the anguish of those who heard only an endless ringing and no answer.
What I also feel is anger. Anger that better systems do not exist to protect the public, yes, but mostly anger that yet another waste of oxygen has decided to play God and end the lives of so many innocent people.
My message to people like him, to the families of people like him? Ask for help. In an interview with one of his brothers, he spoke candidly about how they suspected Ahmad had mental health issues for years, open paranoia, repeatedly speaking of being followed, yet did nothing. Or sadly, perhaps felt there was nothing they could do. In a country where natural born citizens struggle to have even the most basic of health issues addressed, a family of Syrian immigrants needing and accessing mental health care is almost impossible.
Yes, Syrian refugees. Muslim, too. None of which matters or makes this more or less terrible and terroristic than the white man who killed 8 people in Georgia less than a week ago. The Alissa family came here in 2002 when Ahmad was only three years old. So spare me the ‘where was he radicalized’ trope. For all intents, THIS is the only country he has ever known. And his religion matters as much or as little to the equation of his dead than Long’s evangelical Christianity matters to his body count.
But oh, how it does matter in the GQPersphere. FOX, which could not be bothered to cover the shooting last night throughout its myriad bullshit hours when word on the street was that the suspect was white, is now verbally masturbating its flock because his name came out and he is gasp brown, and horrors Muslim. Right wing pundits and comment boards are overflowing with rage, self righteousness, and vengeance, despite having been completely quiet, unless defending, the white man in Georgia who killed 8 people the same way.
And while there is so much to unpack with each of these killers, the common denominator is the ease with which they both acquired a deadly weapon and went on a killing spree.
Politically it is all playing out the way it does every single time there is a mass shooting. Worthless thoughts and prayers. Admonishments from the right that it is “too soon” to talk about seeking answers. And of course, the bullshit fearmongering that Dems are “cummin’ fer yer guns.” Just stop. There are currently 393 million guns in the hands of our citizens. We are a nation with roughly 330 million people meaning every single one of us, whether in the cradle or near the grave, can have at least 1. And we are not safer for having them in circulation. And you cannot tell me that every one of those is owned by someone sane, competent, responsible. And do not give me the worn out old excuse, “Well, if there had been someone with a gun…” Besides the firearm, surprise is their next biggest weapon. As such, we are in danger every single fucking second of our lives.
Let me repeat that part: We are in danger every single fucking second of our lives.
Like so many places, Colorado is open carry. That means: No license or permit is required to open carry in Colorado. A Colorado permit to carry a concealed weapon is unrelated to the right to open carry and if you do have a concealed carry license, you may carry weapons both openly and concealed anywhere not prohibited by law.
So anyone can strap themselves up like a cosplay Rambo and go grocery shopping, walk into a McDonald’s, saunter down your street, load up on Cheese Puffs at Walmart. And we’re just supposed to know who is a good guy, albeit is a paranoid mess that thinks he/she needs a weapon of war strapped to their chest while buying eggs, or a bad guy intent on killing as many people as possible in the cat food aisle?
YOU could be strapped up like Rambo, too, and have it not make a tinker’s damn worth of difference. These shooters rely on the element of surprise. They do not send a calling card indicating when they shall arrive to kill. And even if you could get to your weapon? Your own abilities paired with panic and adrenaline mean the outcome could leave more innocent lives taken as you try to “protect” them. (I point to the example out of Texas when a concealed carry enthusiast shot a car jacking victim in the head while trying to “protect” him. He ran after realizing what a Great White Hunter he actually was not.)
But back to Long and Alissa. Two 21 year old men, two terrorists, who took out their personal demons, hate, and rage on innocent people.
I don’t care if your childhood was/is pure shit. I don’t give a rat’s ass if your girlfriend dumped you or if you just lost your job. I don’t care if you have chronic acne and never got laid. I don’t give two shits in a whirlwind that you believe you have been slighted, maligned, misunderstood, or marginalized by someone or something in this life. I do not care if you have been over-religicized or not at all.
We all go through shit. We all get treated in ways we don’t appreciate at some point in our lives. We all experience disappointments, let-downs, slights, heartbreaks, dashed hopes, crushed dreams, bad people, and life’s general ability to make us feel small.
That does not give us the right to strike out and demand some gory retribution. A 21 year old knows this. Hell, a 10 year old knows this.
So to Ahmad and Robert? You are waaaaaay old enough to know better, to understand the import of your plans, the permanence of your actions. Your life as you knew it may be over, but at least you still have a life. You stole that from 18 other people.
I’ll save my thoughts for the victims, and especially for all those who now have to learn how to take the next breath in this life, knowing that their child, their loved one, their friend, their spouse, their father, their mother, their grandparent is not taking it with them.
Boulder is not a massive city, roughly 100,000 people. It is a college town. It is eclectic, has history, is beautiful, is one of my favorite places in Colorado. And it is a town that will feel this tragedy to the bone. Smaller towns may have some drawbacks, but one of them is not a lack of community. Smaller towns, for better or worse, have that one down cold.
People know one another. They have grown up together. They look out for one another. Yes, sometimes they are WAY too much in one another’s business, but that’s part of the tradeoff.
Their community will rally, they will mourn, they will move forward. What else is there to do?
I’ll tell you.
Look at your child. Hold the baby you just birthed. Embrace your spouse. Call your parents. Hug your friend. And then ask yourself if you are willing to sit idly by anymore and allow them to be sacrificed to a mindset that believes “more guns” is any kind of answer. Or that ignoring the mental health care access need in this country is an acceptable gamble.
Because if you think it cannot happen in your town, you are wildly naïve. If you think it won’t happen again, you have not been paying attention. This is only March 23rd, and our nation has suffered 107 mass shootings (4 or more injured or killed), leaving 122 people dead and 325 injured, for a total of 447 total victims (some including the shooter). Further, this is the 7th mass shooting in 7 days. It will happen.
Someone in your town is seething. In fact, there are hundreds, thousands of these shooters out there. They inhabit every school, at every grade level. They are your co-workers, the people choosing apples next to you at the store. They are there, feeling invisible, marginalized, penalized in life for things over which they feel they have zero control. Feeling feelings that are too big, overwhelming, desperate. Mainlining hate.
And most of all angry.
Angry at their circumstances. Angry at the perceived inequities of their life vs the lives they see others living where everything appears Nirvana-ish. Anger because they have been told to be angry at someone, something, some group. Directed to blame their life’s lot on someone else. The government, a skin color, women who won’t date them, someone of opposite politics, an ideology, a religion.
And that anger sits, ferments, begins to boil, until one day it runs over, cannot be contained, and with the help of 393,000,000 guns — explodes.
Changing yet another town’s name to Here.
Again.
I know this because this article has been written by using entire LARGE sections of past articles I have written after past mass shootings. All I had to do is change the town, adjust the numbers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post script
It started immediately yesterday while the bodies were still on the cold tile throughout the grocery store. Q idiots and conspiracy theorists loudly banging the “false flag” drum. To all of you whose grasp on reality is so tenuous, whose relation to facts and data is non-existent, who insist only you have all the answers and are part of some exciting Dan Brown novel come-to-life, who cannot seem to navigate a world where things like this DO happen — just shut the ever loving fuck up. People died for no other reason than deciding to go buy strawberries at the wrong time. Young people, old people — DEAD. Whatever is so broken inside you that you have zero compunction about compounding the unimaginable grief being felt by so many? You are horrid, hateful, wretched creatures. Just sit the fuck down and keep your ignorant gobs closed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In memory of the 18 who were gunned down in Georgia and Colorado, and let down by the “greatest nation on Earth.”
Denny Stong, 20
Neven Stanisic, 23
Rikki Olds, 25
Talona Bartkowiak, 49
Suzanne Fountain, 59
Teri Leiker, 51
Ofc. Eric Talley, 51
Kevin Mahoney, 61
Lynn Murray, 62
Jody Waters, 65
Xiaojie Tan, 49
Delaina Yaun, 33
Paul Andre Michels, 54
Daoyou Feng, 44
Hyun Jung Grant,51
Soon Chung Park,74
Sun Cha Kim,69
Yong Yue, 63
