canyonwalker | Entries tagged with tragedy of the week

On Saturday former president Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. One of my first thoughts when I saw the breaking news was, "OMG, I hope whoever shot him doesn't strongly identify with Democratic politics." The last thing we need right now— other than a political assassination— is for the false narrative Trumpists have been telling for years now that Democrats are extreme and violent and out to "get" "real" Americans to be bolstered by an actual instance of leftwing violence. So far it's just been a fiction they repeat daily. And, of course, plenty of people believe it because they repeat it so often and point to made-up or heavily distorted stories to justify it. But for an actual, bonafide instance to occur.... That would take their fear-mongering of violent lefties to the next level.

And that takes us to where we're at in understanding the motivations of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the person who allegedly shot at Trump. Authorities are basically nowhere in understanding him. Shooters, whether they're would-be assassins or mass shooters of ordinary civilians, often leave a manifesto, explaining and justifying their strongly held beliefs. Crooks left no manifesto. Shooters often air their beliefs among like-minded people, either in person or (much more common today) in splinter groups online. Crooks did none of that, either, at least as far as authorities have discovered and made public.

In the first hours after the shooting I saw claims on social media that Crooks was aligned with various far-right political groups. I haven't seen these in fact-checked stories in mainstream media. Thus I'm taking them with a large grain of salt until otherwise reported.

On Saturday, July 13, a shooter allegedly attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. The former president was struck by a bullet and suffered only superficial injury.

Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, to advance his candidacy for president in this coming November's election. Shots rang out, Trump fell, and Secret Service agents rushed to help him up and move him to safety.

Donald Trump moments after an assassination attempt (Photo by Evan Vucci, Associate Press, Jul 2024)

Donald Trump moments after an assassination attempt (Photo by Evan Vucci, Associate Press, Jul 2024)

The first news reports to hit the wire did not state that Trump was struck by a bullet. That's part of how journalism works in fast-response situations— the earliest drafts omit some key details until they can be confirmed. Though when I saw the now-iconic photo by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, which I've included above, I immediately noticed the blood on Trump's cheek and ear.

The Secret Service quickly spotted the suspected shooter, atop a building some distance away, and killed him. Authorities subsequently identified the alleged gunman as local resident Thomas Matthew Crooks, age 20.

Right now we don't know much about Crooks's motivation for the alleged assassination attempt. Election records show that he donated $15 to a Democratic aligned group in 2021, when he was age 17, while at age 18 he registered to vote as a Republican. People who knew Crooks locally say he never expressed strong opinions about politics. That's against the type for people who perpetrate very public shootings. Often a history of political and social antagonism is found. Perhaps Crooks expressed his thoughts in a place authorities have not yet discovered. Knowing his mind would help make sense of this national near-calamity.

After 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley brought a gun to school and murdered 4 classmates and injured 6 other students and 1 teacher at his Michigan high school in November, 2021 prosecutors charged not only him but his parents. The theory of the case against the parents was that they ignored abundant signs their minor child was making violent threats, bought him a gun, and failed to take steps to secure the gun. The parents were tried separately. Last month Jennifer Crumbley, the shooter's mother, was found guilty on 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter (ABC News article, 6 Feb 2024). Today James Crumbley, the shooter's father, was convicted on 4 counts of involuntary manslaughter (ABC News article, 14 Mar 2024).

One of the telling pieces of evidence in the parents' trials was a picture a teacher snapped with her cellphone hours before the shooting. The shooter allegedly drew this in math class. The teacher, alarmed, notified school administrators.

Previously I described this picture in words. This time I'm going to share a scan of it I found online (widely reported now as it was evidence in criminal trials) because it's so freaking obvious as a warning sign:

A teacher snapped a picture of a student drawing on a worksheet the day of a school shooting in November, 2021

A teacher snapped a picture of a student drawing on a worksheet the day of a school shooting in November, 2021

The drawings show a handgun, a bullet, and a person apparently injured with gunshot wounds and a large pool of blood. Written next to these drawings are "Blood everywhere" and "The thoughts wont stop Help me". Elsewhere on the page were and "My life is useless" and "The world is dead".

The school principal called the boy's parents to the school and showed them the drawing. By then the boy had crossed out parts of the his doodling and added some cheery phrases. But the alarming parts were still visible. The parents denied there was anything wrong with the drawing and flatly refused, when asked, to take their son out of school for the rest of the day. Ethan Crumbley went on to shoot 11 people, killing 4 of them, later that day with a handgun he already had in his school bag.

Among the parents' defenses at their trial was that they didn't know their son was troubled. They hadn't seen any signs. WTF?! How much more obvious of a sign did they need?!?!

BTW, this wasn't the only sign. There were other incidents at school, too, where teachers and administrators reported concerns to the parents. The parents dismissed all of those, too. And in other evidence it was shown they at least knew he was feeling bad. Their solution? They bought him a gun and gave it to him as an early Christmas gift as a pick-me-up. It was the gun he used a day later to shoot 11 people, killing 4.

Sometimes the tragedy of the week keeps on tragedy...-ing. That happened today when school principal Dan Marburger died from wounds he incurred in a shooting at his Des Moines, IA area school on Jan. 4. Marburger died after a week and half from multiple gunshot wounds he suffered trying to intervene to stop the shooter. Example news coverage: Des Moines Register article, 14 Jan 2024; NBC News article, 14 Jan 2024; CNN article, 14 Jan 2024.

With neither a weapon nor police or military training[1] Marburger tried doing what he knew as an educator— to talk to the shooter, try to calm him down, and if nothing else delay his rampage so that students in the line of fire might escape. Marburger succeed on the last of these, as only one other student, whom authorities believe was shot before Marbuger, died.

Marburger, aged 55, worked his whole career in education, and had been principal of Perry High School in Perry, IA since 1997. He leaves behind a wife, 5 children, at least one grandchild, and other relatives.

[1] I point this out because it's an article of faith among gun rights supporters that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." There's sadly very little evidence supporting that as (a) a good many of these nutjob shooters with too-easy access to guns kill themselves in their rampages, (b) the record of even trained police officers in stopping mass shooters is checkered at best— here I'm thinking specifically about the Uvalde, TX school shooting in May 2022 when police officers waited an hour an a half to confront the shooter even as students pinned down in the school where the shooter was still shooting made repeated 911 calls begging authorities to intervene— and (c) the record of civilians intervening is worse. When Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was injured in a Tuscon, AZ mass shooting in 2011, a would-be good Samaritan with a gun rushed to the scene and attempted to fire his weapon at a person he saw reaching for a gun on the ground. Fortunately for everyone involved that would-be good Samaritan's gun jammed; because the person he intended to kill was another good Samaritan who had just helped disarm the mass shooter.

Oops, it happened again. Another week, another mass shooting. (Actually these happen more than once a day in the US; it's just they only make the news once a week or so because we're sadly so accustomed to them.) It was another school shooting, too. On Thursday a troubled student at Perry High School north of Des Moines, Iowa, walked in with a gun and killed a sixth grader and injured 7 other people including the principal before turning his gun on himself. Example news coverage: NBC News article & video, 5 Jan 2024.

The shooting occurred while many GOP candidates seeking the 2024 presidential nomination are in Iowa ahead of the state's first-in-nation caucus later this month. Sadly these leaders had nothing meaningful to say about the tragedy. Folks such as Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy offered their "thoughts", as they always do, but when it came to political solutions all they could offer was that we have a "mental health" problem in this country.

The problem with conservatives blaming gun violence on "mental health" is twofold. One, these same conservatives routinely block laws relating to mental health and guns, whether it be (a) funding for mental health care or (b) restrictions on possession of guns by the mentally ill. Two, as many people pointed out when House Speaker Mike Johnson said the problem is "the human heart" after a church shooting a few months ago, humans in every country in the world have hearts but only in the US among first-world countries do we have such an outrageous death toll by gun violence. Since 2020 gun violence has been the leading cause of death among kids in the US. It's not the hearts, it's the guns, stupid.

Donald Trump was even more direct about the GOP's intransigence against doing anything meaningful about gun violence. People "have to get over it," he said at a rally in Iowa Friday. Example news coverage: Rolling Stone, 5 Jan 2024.

Oops, it happened again. Another nut with easy access to military style weapons walked into a business, school, or house of worship and shot people indiscriminately. A shooter in Lewiston, Maine entered a bowling alley and a bar and killed 18 people and wounded at least 13 more on Wednesday night. Police quickly identified a local man as the suspect, but 36 hours later he is still at large. Residents across Maine have been under shelter-in-place orders and many schools are closed for a second day as heavily armed authorities continue their manhunt.

Meanwhile our politicians remain ideologically deadlocked. "The problem is the human heart. It's not guns, it's not the weapons," new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told the media. (Yes, the House managed to elect a new Speaker after 3 weeks of Republican caused chaos. Blog coming on that soon.)

Here's the problem with that "It's not guns, it's people" argument.... Every nation on earth has people with hearts. Yet the US is alone in having a civilian mass shooting practically every day. What's the difference between the US and every other developed nation— all of whom have 100% humans with hearts? It's the guns, stupid.

Yesterday was 9/11. It was the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As the tragedy of that day recedes farther into the rear view mirror of history it seems like a gradually less important anniversary. And that's a good thing.

Part of the reason it's becoming less significant is that there are fewer things today to associate it with. Slightly fewer things, anyway. There's no more War in Iraq or War in Afghanistan. The latter the US wound down two years ago... and Afghanistan's weak government promptly conceded to the Taliban, the murderous, misogynistic regime we spent 20 years and trillions of dollars fighting to defeat. Oops. Well, at least we're not putting US soldiers in harm's way anymore.

Speaking of US soldiers, the lead in a lot of news stories the past few days has been that young men and women enrolling in the military these days weren't even alive when 9/11 happened. We're 22 years on from it now; most recruits are 18-19.

A common narrative in these stories is that the recruits are no longer motivated by revenge. The recruits of several years ago remembered 9/11 as it happened. They saw it on TV, live. They joined the military with the expectation that they'd go to war and get to punish the perpetrators. Or at least punish the people who grew up in the country where a small insurgent power temporarily sheltered the wealthy guy who paid the perpetrators, most of whom were from a country the US political right cozies up to while blaming other countries.

The fact that military recruits today are part of the post-9/11 generation reminds me of how schoolkids for the past several years have all been part of the post-Columbine generation. For several years kids growing up have only known both a world that was always turned upside by 9/11 and the reactions to it, as well as the way the experience of attending school in the US has been irrevocably altered by frequent school shootings. In the latter case, young people today have something to say about it. ...And that something is, increasingly, "Enough!" Meanwhile, what's being said about 9/11? I don't think there's a reaction coalescing around it, except maybe for worn-out resignation.

On Wednesday a jury in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania sentenced Robert Bowers to death. Bowers was the gunman who, on October 27, 2018, entered the Tree of Life Jewish synagogue and opened fire on congregants attending sabbath worship services there. Armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle and other firearms he killed 11 people and wounded 7 others, including 4 police officers who responded to the scene. Example news coverage: CNN article, 2 Aug 2023; NBC News article, 2 Aug 2023.

Bowers had a long history of activity in far-right hate group online forums. He posted about antisemitic beliefs and hatred of immigrants, including the "Great Replacement" theory that they are "invaders" who are stealing the US from its rightful White-Christian owner-occupants. In the trial the defense argued that such beliefs show Bowers is mentally ill and thus should be given a lighter sentence. The prosecution discredited that, and the jury didn't buy it.

Indeed, whereas once such odious beliefs were part of the far fringe, over the past several years they have become part of the Republican party mainstream. Donald Trump used the language of the The Great Replacement theory during his presidency and subsequently. Other elected Republicans, and popular personalities on conservative TV and radio programs, have also used the movement's arguments and terminology. Should the 30% or so of the US who unfortunately believe such evil be excused for acting out murderously because their beliefs are so hideous we might call them "insane"?

While I absolutely believe Bowers should be punished, harshly, I do not think a death sentence is appropriate. The death penalty is basically a broken system. And an expensive one, with all the mandatory appeals that routinely stretch decades. I'd have been happy to see a sentence of 18 life terms. To be served consecutively.

Regardless of what punishment the shooter gets, whether it's life in prison or death, nothing can undo the damage caused. And here I don't just mean the loss of life and the pain and suffering of the survivors. This synagogue shooting rang a bell than cannot be un-rung. It showed that Americans are not safe in their houses of worship. ...Well, not-White and/or not-Christian houses of worship. Part of my family is Jewish. At each of the temples they belong to the congregation has discussed whether and how to have armed guards at worship services. There was even an armed guard accompanying us in the cemetery at a burial service I attended a few years ago. This is insane... though not the type of insanity that can be addressed by medicine.

Yet-another mass shooting with several people dead has occurred in the US. On Saturday a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Allen, TX, a suburb of Dallas. Eight victims were killed and at least seven others wounded. The gunman used an AR-15 military-style rifle. Example coverage: CBS News article, 6 May 2023.

In the few days it's taken me to write about this on my blog— it usually takes me a few days to catch up because I really hate writing about this epidemic of tragedies half our political leaders absolutely refuse to do anything meaningful about— more facts have come out about the murderer. Apparently he's a right wing extremist (no surprise; most mass shooters are) and white supremacist (again, no surprise; many shooters are) who has multiple Nazi tattoos on his body. Example coverage: CBS News article, 9 May 2023.

My blog has been fairly full the past few weeks with writing and photographs about outdoors trips I've enjoyed. While I've now (almost) cleared the backlog on those fun things, I've accumulated a backlog of sad and infuriating things I need to acknowledge. Among these is the Tragedy of the Week. ...Or, since it's been a few weeks, the Tragedies of the Weeks. 🤬

Three weeks ago, on March 27, a shooter entered a private school in Nashville, TN and shot multiple people. Among the dead were 3 teachers and 3 students. Example news coverage: BBC.com article, 28 Mar 2023.

One week ago a shooter opened fire at a bank in Louisville, KY. He killed 5 people and wounded 9 others, including two police officers who responded to the situation. Example news coverage: CNN.com story, updated 16 Apr 2023; Louisville Courier Journal story, 11 Apr 2023.

Last night shooting erupted at a Sweet 16 birthday party at a dance studio in Dadeville, AL. So far the toll is 4 dead and 28 injured, most of them teens who attended the party. Unlike the other mass-shooting events listed above it's not clear who the shooter was in this one, or if more than one person fired guns. Example coverage: AL.com article, 17 Apr 2023.

I'll note (sadly) these are only the major mass-shooting events of the past 3 weeks, the ones that have made national headlines. For each of these there are several shootings involving multiple people injured that don't make the news.

I used to be a big fan of The Onion, an online satire newspaper, years ago. I remember looking forward to new editions published online every Wednesday. Several years ago I stopped reading it because it had gotten... well, I don't think stale is the right word, though it had gotten a bit stale. The real problem was that current events in the US were getting so ridiculous, so absurd with obvious things that moneyed interests or political interests were clearly gaslighting us on, that attempts to write satire became unfunny. When the real news is full of leaders making a mockery of the truth— i.e., lying— with straight faces, there's no satire anymore.

Today I found a link in the news to an article in The Onion that reminds me of the classics of old. In fact it is old. It was originally published in 2013... and has been republished multiple dozen times since then. I checked on their website, and sure enough there's a new version of it today:

The Onion has been re-running this story after every mass shooting in the US for 9 years (screenshot Jan 2023)

The Onion has been re-running this story after every mass shooting in the US for 9 years (screenshot Jan 2023)

The Onion re-publishes this article after many mass shootings in the US, changing only the byline and a few key words about where it occurred. Today's it about a shooting in Half Moon Bay, California, on Monday that killed 7 people.

The bulk of the article the The Onion keeps the same every time:

[C]itizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said New Hampshire resident Lisa Martin, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

Sometimes, sadly, the most powerful satire is the bare truth.

Though there's one thing they get wrong in the article. They note mass shootings occur twice a month. The true number is more, way more. Mass shootings occur in the US on average at least once a day.

[Updated 25 Jan 2023 for spelling, clarity, and accuracy.]

Monday afternoon as I was updating my blog on the mass shooting at a senior citizen dance club in Monterey Park, California, checking news reports that the death toll had increased to 11, I saw news of another mass shooting in California in the newsfeed. Police had arrested a gunman in connection with at least 7 deaths and one injury near Half Moon Bay, California.

My feelings on seeing another mass shooting tragedy so soon on the heels of the earlier one are summed up by this tweet from Gov. Gavin Newsom yesterday:

At the hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I get pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay.

Tragedy upon tragedy.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 23, 2023

Gov. Newsom tweeted that at 5:35 PM on Monday. Less than an hour later yet another mass shooting occurred in California. Police estimate it occurred just after 6pm Monday in Oakland. It took authorities hours to piece together details— so it didn't hit really hit the news until early this morning— as the victims all fled the scene and went to different hospitals on their own. Authorities have so far identified 7 injured and 1 dead from this shooting.

A gunman shot multiple people at a Chinese New Year celebration Saturday night in Monterey Park, California, a city just east of Los Angeles. 10 people died, 10 more were injured. Update, Monday afternoon: The death toll is now 11, as one of the injured died at a hospital Monday.

On Sunday, police in Torrance, California, a beach city south of L.A., approached a van matching one described as fleeing the scene of the crime. Heavily armed police found the driver dead inside, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police are not releasing the name of this person or confirming whether or not he matches descriptions of the person seen committing the mass shooting.

It's also unclear what motive the shooter may have had for the murders. Because the victims were predominantly Chinese Americans, in a city with an ethnically Asian majority population, at a Lunar New Year celebration, it was speculated early on that the motive may have been hate related. But then a community member who knew a person matching the suspect's description said the motive was jealousy— that the suspect may have shot 20 people, killing 10, because he was angry that his wife invited other people to a party but not him.

Is it better that this mass shooting might not be a hate crime? Like, can we all sleep better tonight knowing that the latest mass shooting the US was a normal mass murder?

Update, Sunday evening: Shortly after I initially posted this blog, police released the name of the man found dead in the white van and confirmed he was their suspect in the mass shooting. Per modern media standards I will not repeat the suspect's name so as not to raise publicity for him or his cause (whatever that might be). The suspect does seem to be a member of the same community the 20 shooting victims come from. Thus the focus of search for a motive shifts from the hypothesis that it could be an act of racial animus to likely being personal grievance.

Update, Monday noon: Police have identified two of the deceased by name. The remaining victims they have identified only by gender and age. What's chilling is that all 20 of them are/were older adults, age 50-80. This is a different kind of mass shooting than the ones we have sadly become accustomed to in the US, where the victims are often younger adults, teens, or even children. But then again, if we are forced to accept, "Nut with guns shoots up a classroom of grade-school children" as normal, how much different should, "Nut with guns shoots up a senior citizens' dance studio" be? 😖

On Monday Abigail Zwerner, a teacher in Newport News, Virginia, was shot by one of her students. A six year old pulled out a gun he brought to school and shot her, once. The teacher, whose immediate action was to get the rest of her class to safety before caring for herself, is recovering from her injuries at a hospital.

There are so many things wrong with this situation I'm not sure where to start. There are so many things wrong I'm not even sure I can get to them all in a single blog entry.

First, a 6 year old should not have a gun. Of course, the student didn't buy the gun. Children can't buy guns in the US. (Yay?) The child's mother bought the gun, legally. I'm not sure if it's known exactly how the gun got into the boy's hands, but clearly there's responsibility for that on the part of the mother and/or other adults in the house. Guns should not be stored where children can take them.

Beyond even the question of access, many have raised the question of how a 6 year old knows how to shoot a firearm. It strains belief to imagine a case of "The child was just playing with it and it went off". The boy carried it to school in a backpack, drew it, aimed it, fired a single shot, and struck his teacher with that shot. I know from personal experience: knowing how to load a weapon, ready it to fire (disabling the safety, cocking the hammer, etc.) and then actually firing a round requires a certain level of familiarity. As crazy as it is to commit this to writing: I think this child, this 6 year old child, was taught how to use a gun. 🤯

Authorities are saying the shooting was intentional. Uh, how do you determine a 6 year old's intentions?

"This is a troubled young man," the police chief said during a news conference.

Uh, no, this is not a "young man". It's a 6 year old child. He is closer to the moment of conception than he is to being a man. He is closer to infancy than he is even to becoming a teenager.

"Because of his youth he's unlikely to serve jail time," a news article this evening informs me. Good— because what jail is set up for a 6 year old?? But even if he gets probation— How do you enforce probation on a 6 year old, anyway? Enforced naps after lunch? No chocolate milk? A strict, 1 hour limit on screen time?

I want to see charges filed against the parent(s). Children, especially young children, should never have access to guns. Parents with guns need to be held responsible when children who are way too young to be responsible get hold of them.

Earlier today I posted "Democrats Screwed Up The Messaging" about how they've not just lost the messaging war for this year's election but have underperformed on messaging for several years running. There are two important facets to messaging.... It's not just what you say but how you say it. In my previous blog I explained the high level mistakes in "how". Here's a bit on the "what".

BTW, you might be tempted to dismiss this as "Monday morning quarterbacking". Well, election day's not 'til tomorrow! So this is more like "Inside the 2-minute warning quarterbacking." 😅

In my previous blog I described that Democrats' 2022 issues of protecting reproductive rights and protecting the right to vote against conspiracy nuts gaining control over the levers of power got hijacked by Republicans making this election about household issues of inflation stretching family budgets, and crime. Because the Democrats have long been seen as the party of working class Americans it's notable that Republicans are further stripping away this demographic from them. It's not longer just the "God, Guns, and (anti-)Immigrants" White Christian working class that's with the Republicans; recently it's more ethnic minorities, too.

So, what could Democrats do (or have done) differently? Dems could own these issues. Here's just an off-the-cuff level response I'd make on inflation if I were a Democrat leader:

"You're worried about inflation. We get it. It's tough when prices on almost everything are going up. But while we've tried to pass programs that would help working families, Republicans have blocked them. And what does the Republican party propose to do instead? They've got nothing. Nothing.

"So look at what they did last time they were in power.... They passed a tax cut benefiting the rich. A tax cut that had to be paid for by the government borrowing more money. Excessive borrowing is part of what's caused this inflation!

"And what have the rich done in return? Just this week the world's richest man, an outspoken supporter of Republic politics, bought a company and promptly laid off 3,700 employees. 3,7000 well paying jobs, gone. You can't trust these people to fix inflation."

And on the subject of crime:

"You're worried about crime. We get it, we don't like crime either. But the Republicans are feeding you scare stories about how bad things are. The fact is that crime is at a historic low in the past 50 years. You and your kids are safer now than in your parents' or grandparents' generation.

"There's one sub-category of crime that really does seem to be getting worse, though. Mass shootings. These used to happen once a year. Then once a month. Then once a week. Now they actually happen more than once a day. They've become so frequent that most of them aren't even news anymore. And that's doubly terrifying.

"People in churches and schools shouldn't have to worry about getting shot by a nutjob with a gun who thinks he's fighting a race war. Yet what are the Republicans saying about crime? They're blaming it on immigrants and communities of color, fueling the racial animus of these mass shooters, and then saying the solution is more guns. Do you really want more guns in the hands of troubled people fed stories of racial hatred?"

Again, this just an extemporaneous take on how Dems could be looking to take control of the message. It's sad that with their wealth of experience and power they've missed so badly. That's why it's time for new leadership. New Democrat leadership.

This past weekend nationwide rallies were held by March For Our Lives, a student-led organization calling for action to reduce gun violence. The rallies reminded me of a question I've asked myself a number of times recently. If I were a grade school/high school student, or a parent of a student, what would I do? Besides attend a rally, I mean. Specifically, would I refuse to attend school or send my kids to school until meaningful steps to protect students are taken?

"Protest by refusing to go to school," is an easy thing to say. And indeed, various protest organizers have suggested it. Often it's a one-day or half-day thing; "Skip school this Friday to protest gun violence." But in some corners it's "Refuse to go at all" until political leaders meaningfully address the problem.

The problem with skipping school is that it's not a solution. It does nothing to raise the pressure on the intransigent political leaders who've thwarted meaningful change for 40 years. The mounting death toll of students mowed down in their classrooms by angry people with paramilitary weapons hasn't appealed to their better angels; so all that's left now for protest is to make them feel the pain of the situation they've created. Students skipping school does not do that. The people most hurt by that are the students themselves. They lose educational opportunities, they may be disqualified for a high school diploma, their prospects for college are jeopardized. I can only imagine how risky it would've been for me to tell the highly selective colleges I was applying to as a teenager, "Well, I didn't actually get a H.S. diploma because I was staying home to protest lack of public safety." Likewise if I were the parent of a high school student I don't think I could in good faith support them choosing to stay home.

Oops, it happened again. Another week, another mass-shooting tragedy.

On Wednesday a gunman entered a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and killed four people. Example news coverage: CNN article, updated 3 Jun 2022.

I've written before about the challenge of writing about mass shooting tragedies. As a writer I want time to process what happened about them first. The problem is they keep happening. They keep happening faster than we can even sort out the facts about them.

I still have things I want to write about the mass-shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY, two weeks ago. But before I had time to write about that, 19 kids and 2 teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX. And during the several days I've held off writing further about that tragedy— since my blog is not primarily a crime blotter— now there's been a mass shooting in Tulsa.

I hate to ask, "How many more will die?" before I get around to writing about these. Because while it sounds like a cruel rhetorical question it's actually a frighteningly real question. The fact is if it takes me several days to finish writing about not-murder related stuff on my blog there will probably be another mass shooting in that time.

Yesterday I wrote "Two Weeks, Two Tragedies" about the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX. I decided to make that a brief post, simply recognizing what happened. As I composed the post first in my head, then initially on paper, it was much longer. I have a lot of thoughts to share about these incidents and the patterns around them. I had been waiting to post, giving myself time both to digest the situation better and write about it fully. While I was waiting for the right moment to write fully about one tragedy (Buffalo) the next one (Uvalde) occurred. So yesterday I decided rather than wait to write fully I would just write something; get something brief and basic out, then build on it later.

I go back and forth about how much time I want to spend blogging about The Tragedy of the Week. Click the tag link below— or check it on LiveJournal where there's longer history if you're reading this on Dreamwidth— and you'll see I've only written about the topic a few times in recent years. Sadly, that's not because such tragedy has been rare but because it's so frequent. Because it's so frequent, writing about it is hard. It's draining. It's also not what I want my blog to be about. Yes, the tragedies of the week are so common that if I wrote about every one— just in the US— it would become a major theme of this blog.

At the same time, though, the tragedy is too much to ignore. We can't just push it to the back of our consciousness. While that's a totally valid coping mechanism, deciding not to let things we feel we can't control occupy space in our minds, it's a terrible way to deal with the situation. People are dying, because people are committing murder. Against innocent people— children, often— in schools, houses of worship, supermarkets, theaters and dance clubs, etc. That can't be let go unaddressed.

Years ago I created the tag The Tragedy of the Week on my blog. My first use was in December 2012, in the wake of the Newtown school shooting. My intent was sardonic humor. Tragedies involving innocent young people killed by guns, such as in school shootings, were becoming so common that they seemed to happen every week. It wasn't meant to be literal!

The past two weeks, though, have seen two major mass-shooting tragedies. Last week, on Saturday, May 14, a gunman shot 13 people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. 10 people died. Example news coverage: CNN article updated May 18.

This week, on Tuesday, May 24, a gunman walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and barricaded himself in a classroom. He killed a whopping 21 people, including 19 children around the age of 10 years old, and injured 17 more. Example news coverage: Forbes article updated May 26.

I'll have more to say about these events, a lot more, soon.

Yesterday I posted to my blog about the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, that killed 4 and wounded 7. I'd been considering whether or not, and how, to write about it for a few days. These events are tragedies, and they're sadly becoming too frequent to write about all of them without turning this blog into "The Tragedy of the Day". What finally tipped me over to writing about this one was an interview I heard on the radio yesterday with a major news media reporter who's covered numerous school shootings. One of the points he made in his interview is that the set of people harmed by a shooting is much broader than just the people killed or injured by gunshots.

This makes sense when you start to think about it. Every student killed has a family who's devastated. Every student wounded may be permanently injured and has a family who'll have to live with the consequences of that and probably support them. Adults killed or injured in shootings have families, too, and they're not just somebody's spouse, sister, brother, child, or parent; they're also a family's breadwinner. With this consideration the number of people you can imagine being impacted grows from 11 (those killed or wounded) to dozens, maybe even 100+.

But the circle of harm is broader still, the reporter explained. Every student in the school is harmed. Hundreds of students hid from the shooter, afraid for their lives for tens of minutes and not knowing whether they'd get out of school alive. Every student in the school likely knew at least one person who was shot. Every student in the school has got to wonder when it's safe to return— if it's safe to return. Their parents are wondering the same thing, too! And it's not just the students and their families; it's all the teachers and staff, too. They were all in fear for their lives. And many of the staff will also tormented by thoughts of, What could I have done differently to protect more students? The number of people harmed, psychologically, is in the thousands.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1026461.html

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A Man and an Enigma
Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump
Parents of Teen School-Shooter Charged and Convicted
RIP, Dan Marburger
School Shooting in Iowa. Trump Says "Get Over It".
Oops, It Happened Again. 18 Dead in Maine.
22 Years of 9/11
Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Sentenced to Death
Eight Dead in Mass Shooting Saturday near Dallas
Tragedies of the Weeks
When Satire Fails, The Onion Prints the Truth
Two More Mass Shootings: Half Moon Bay, Oakland
11 Killed in Mass Shooting Near L.A., Suspect Dead
Student, Age 6, Shoots Teacher. "Intentionally".
Democrats Screwed Up The Messaging, part 2
Protesting Mass Shootings - What Would I Do?
Oops, It Happened Again (Another Mass Shooting)
Writing about the Tragedy of the Week
Two Weeks, Two Tragedies: Buffalo and Uvalde Mass Shootings
Those Impacted by a School Shooting? Thousands.

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Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Entries tagged with tragedy of the week

A Man and an Enigma

Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump

Parents of Teen School-Shooter Charged and Convicted

RIP, Dan Marburger

School Shooting in Iowa. Trump Says "Get Over It".

Oops, It Happened Again. 18 Dead in Maine.

22 Years of 9/11

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Sentenced to Death

Eight Dead in Mass Shooting Saturday near Dallas

Tragedies of the Weeks

When Satire Fails, The Onion Prints the Truth

Two More Mass Shootings: Half Moon Bay, Oakland

11 Killed in Mass Shooting Near L.A., Suspect Dead

Student, Age 6, Shoots Teacher. "Intentionally".

Democrats Screwed Up The Messaging, part 2

Protesting Mass Shootings - What Would I Do?

Oops, It Happened Again (Another Mass Shooting)

Writing about the Tragedy of the Week

Two Weeks, Two Tragedies: Buffalo and Uvalde Mass Shootings

Those Impacted by a School Shooting? Thousands.