photo: Borderland Beat
"My
first love was a 22, nice and slim; tucked in my Chucker boots what a priceless
gem." -- "Toolz of the
Trade," Smif n Wessun
This
has the feeling of one of those events that will forever hang
with us. Many may never forget where they
were or what they were doing when they first heard about it. It's a feeling roused by the realization that
for hours after this event, literally every person with whom I had even the
briefest of contact asked the same question: "Did you hear about the
shooting?"
Indeed, there have been few
occasions that I can recall such an intensely unified reaction of shock to an
act of gun violence involving some yahoo going "postal." It's
as if in the hours after the event, the grimy, sulphuric presence of gunpowder
residue continued to hang over the nation.
Somehow I don't recall this
level of passion in the post carnage reactions and analysis of any of the recent
mass shootings. Not after the Fort Hood killings in Texas or the Sikh Temple
massacre in Milwaukee. And not after the Gabby Giffords shooting in Toledo or
the "joker" theater rampage in Colorado. That series of recent gun massacres resulted in a combined total of 38 Americans
dead and 105 injured 105.
I also don't recall in the
previous events, an atmosphere of such deflated sorrow that in this case caused
so many otherwise hardened law enforcement officials, experienced journalists,
seasoned first responders, veteran politicians, and even presidents to become so uncontrollably teary-eyed.
There seems little doubt that this
event is palpably different. It has a
911-like surrealism to it. But can it
illicit the same degree of serendipity to become -- as is alleged of 9-11 -- the
day that "changed everything?" Indeed
after the latest in an epic stream of gun-related atrocities, the question for
many has to be: will it make a difference?
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