October 2nd, 2017 — Las Vegas Shooting

I woke up today, reached for my phone, and opened up Twitter.

This was the first tweet that I saw. I continued to browse my timeline and began to realize the severity of what had happened. 58 people dead, and hundreds (400+) more injured to a man firing his weapon from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay. 58 people dead because they went to a country music festival.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/mandalay-bay-shooting.html (This article has some footage of the event. Puts the terror into perspective. It is a pretty horrific scene, no blood just fear.)

Before I continue, I would like to extend my thoughts to everybody impacted by this senseless tragedy. Thoughts and prayers probably mean very little in dampening any wounds, but regardless, my best goes out to everyone affected.

So, here we are again. 58 people dead, 400+ injured. Time for the NRA to go silent for a couple of days, gun control advocates to push their agendas (“this is why guns are bad…”), gun advocates to push their agendas (“this is why we need guns…FOR PROTECTION”), and for everybody in the world to send their thoughts and/or prayers. I feel like I have sent my thoughts out to victims of mass shootings almost too often to be genuine anymore.

• October 1st, 2017 – Las Vegas, Nevada: 58 dead and counting, 400+ injured.
• June 12th, 2016 – Orlando, Florida: 49 dead, 58 injured.
• December 2nd, 2015 – San Bernardino, California: 14 dead, 24 injured.
• September 16th, 2013 – Washington, D.C.: 12 dead, 8 injured.
• December 14th, 2012 – Newtown, Connecticut: 26 dead, 2 injured.
• July 20th, 2012 – Aurora, Colorado: 12 dead, 70 injured.
• November 5th, 2009 – Fort Hood, Texas: 13 dead, 33 injured.
• April 3rd, 2009 – Binghamton, New York: 13 dead, 4 injured.
• April 16th, 2007 – Blacksburg, Virginia: 32 dead, 23 injured.

Our thoughts and prayers were probably felt in all of these tragedies, but when does that not become enough? How is it that this happens too many times to count? I was eleven years old when the Virginia Tech shooting happened. I have grown up with this. It is normal to me. This whole process, it is just what happens. It is a safe assumption that once a year a mass shooting will happen, and ultimately nothing will change. Entire generations of American’s do not know what it is like to live in a society where mass shootings are not normal.

Maybe it is because we do not know what to change? Maybe our political institutions are too slow and corrupt? Blame whoever you want. Blame hatred, blame Trump, blame Obama, blame ISIS, blame Christianity, blame Islam, blame the internet, blame the media. It really does not matter because everybody is going to blame someone else and nothing will get done. How are we going to get something done when half the country thinks more guns are the answer and the other half thinks no guns is the answer?

The scariest part of this is not that nothing will get done. The scariest thing is that it is probably just going to happen again, the normality of such tragedies is terrifying. Everyone is going to send out their thoughts and prayers, tweet about what they think the resolution is, and then forget it happened.

We are going to wake up in a couple of months, years if we are lucky, rollover to grab our phones and we will be right back where we started.