I do not want to always write about sad things on here, but sometimes I have to because I am not willing to be a voice that doesn’t speak up. I have spoken up about many different issues on here, but one I have written about a few times is mass shootings. This is something that happens often enough that I haven’t written about many of them on here. But on social media I usually do and I really am so tired of the same news repeating over and over again and politicians saying there is nothing they can do.
I know the statistics show that we’ve had over 300 mass shootings in 2018, but not everyone likes to use that because a mass shooting is any time at least 3 people are shot and it’s not always what people think of when they hear mass shooting. If a man shoots his wife, kids, and neighbor some people might want to think of it as a domestic issue and not a mass shooting. Technically it is a mass shooting, but because some people have a very specific idea of what a mass shooting looks like I’m not doing to debate how many we have had this year.
All I know is that we have had too many.
And in past 3 weeks we have had a major shooting each week that has gotten the attention of the country. Even if you don’t believe we have had as many mass shootings as statistics show, I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t think that one a week is not an issue.
First we had the shooting in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue that targeted Jewish worshippers. We have had shootings at churches before and I know many politicians said that it was an attack on the Christian faith and they were very harsh in criticizing those who attack people in a place of worship. When this shooting happened, many people did cry out about how this was an attack on the Jewish faith and that this was an act of anti-Semitism. But not all politicians wanted to say that and I know they got a lot of backlash about it. They still aren’t all as upset about this attack on Judaism and they were about previous attacks on Christianity, but at least the public is not letting them get away with it.
As many times in the aftermath of the shooting, some politicians (the President included) were saying how this wouldn’t have happened if people had guns with them. However the security guard at the synagogue was shot so being armed didn’t help. There have been attacks on temples and synagogues in the past so they typically do have a lot of security. I remember years ago when I interviewed for a job at a Jewish school and I had to go through a metal detector, my car was searched including a mirror underneath to make sure there was nothing there, and there were multiple levels of secure spaces inside that I had to go through. I can’t imagine having more security nor do I think that people should be terrified to worship where they choose to do so. It is so wrong to blame people for wanting to go to a place to practice their religion but not want to have a gun with them in case someone decides to attack them.
Last week, there was the shooting at the yoga studio in Tallahassee. This was a man who had shared online on various forms of social media about how he blames women for not dating or sleeping with him. This is a story we have heard before with other mass shootings. He felt like he had the right to have the women he wanted and was not ok with them rejecting him. I haven’t seen in the news that he targeted that yoga studio because a particular woman there rejected him or he just picked it because he knew a lot of women would be there. Either way, this was a man who targeted that studio for a reason and he injured many and killed 2 people. And again, to suggest that these women are to blame by not being armed is disgusting. Yoga is a place to be peaceful and nobody should have to be carrying a weapon to feel safe to do so.
And then yesterday (or technically I guess since it happened before midnight it was 2 days ago), there was the shooting at the Borderline bar in Thousand Oaks. This is a bar that many of my friends go to but I personally have not been there. It was college night at the bar so you didn’t have to be 21 to go in and there were many college freshmen and sophomores enjoying a night out. They were having fun when a man decided to go inside and start shooting. This is all very new news so there isn’t much known about the shooter. They have said that he is a veteran and that he served overseas. But they haven’t said anything about a motive, if he had made threats in the past, if he had a connect to the bar, or anything.
I woke up yesterday and since I had gone to be early the night before I didn’t know the news until I got up. I usually listen to an NPR podcast each morning as I get up that gives a quick recap of the news from the day before. But yesterday morning, there were 2 episodes of the podcast. One was the regular one and the other had the title “Thousand Oaks Shooting Update”. I immediately looked at the news online and read the horrific story of what happened. I watched a lot of news yesterday but had to turn it off after several hours because I was getting too upset about it.
While I never went to Borderline, I remember lots of bars like it that I went to in college before I was 21. They were always fun places to go out and be with awesome people. I can’t say that I always felt safe, but it had nothing to do with gun violence. I was worried that someone would slip something into my drink or that I would have something similar happen to me. But I never thought about a gunman coming into the bar and shooting.
The news is saying that many people survived the shooting last night because they have been raised in a world where these mass shootings are a common occurrence. They have heard stories about how to survive and instinctually did that when the shooting started. They knew places to look to hide or how to play dead. They broke windows to escape and teamed up to make sure that their friends and people they just met got out safely. While I am so grateful that so many people got out safe and alive, I am heartbroken that they knew so much about mass shootings that they had plans on how to live even before the shooting started.
While some people are scared of people coming from other countries to terrorize citizens, all of these shootings were done by citizens and not some outsider. There are a lot of other things I could say about the shooters, but I’m not going to. We all know that this is an issue. We all know that mental health care in this country isn’t doing enough to help those who need it and might be stopped from doing something like this if they were able to think clearly. We all know that guns are very easy for people to access even if they don’t have a legal right to own them. These are all things that could be fixed but I don’t know what it is going to take to finally have some action made on the steps to fix it.
I don’t want to have to live in fear that someone will shoot me in a place of worship, a fitness studio, a bar, a school, a business, or anywhere else. I want to feel safe being in public and not feel like I need to carry a weapon just in case. I’m so tired of reading about these stories without change. But I’m going to keep writing about them because I am not going to stand by and feel like nothing will happen because it never has before.
One day there will be a change. I just really hope it will be sooner rather than later.
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