I woke up late on Monday morning, around 10:30 am, after a long night working on political and culture essays. I checked my phone and saw a New York Times alert about the mass shooting in Las Vegas. I quickly flipped on CNN and watched the coverage for the next 45 minutes. I was mesmerized. All the anchors were dressed in black, presumably in deference to the gravity of the situation.
The videos of the shooting made me physically pained. My insides starting burning, and my head began to pound. Innocent people — many of them young — were scrambling for cover as machine gun fire rang out in staccato bursts, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. People screamed, ducked, and, tragically, fell silent on the ground as the bullets found their mark. There were bloody bodies, cries of pain and terror, and a crowd stampede as the victims tried desperately to find safety, nearly impossible given the gunman’s elevated vantage point from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
Then came an interview with the gunman’s brother, Eric Paddock, who lives in Orlando and looked like he had just been run over by a mack truck, he was so shocked and stunned. “He was my brother. It’s like an asteroid fell out of the sky,” he said. He paused, struggling for words. “Find out who he bought the machine guns from.” Another pause. “He’s never even drawn his gun. He’s never hit anybody.” This man, who seemed so utterly normal in his t-shirt standing outside a well-kept, luxurious looking home, had no words for what had happened. I can’t even imagine what it was like for him to wake up to the news that his brother, who he grew up with and shared life with, had done something so venal.
Trump gave a speech. It was a unifying speech. The President said that “although we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today — and always will, forever.” He seemed truly moved, rocked, in shock, just like the rest of us. Inevitably people will question his motives and his words, given how polarizing his presidency has been. But on this morning, on this day, he did it the right way, and left politics and polarization by the wayside.
Then came the gun experts, a panel of heavy duty ex-cops, NYPD detectives and ATF agents. They talked about the weapons the gunman used, how hardcore the guns were, and how impossible it was to fathom that 64-year old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, could bring 10 machine guns into his Mandalay Bay room and not raise suspicion.
Guns. It’s too early to begin the agonized national debate about gun control, for the 9 millionth time. No doubt that will come. My only thought, for now, is this. All of these tragedies, from San Bernardino to Orlando to now Las Vegas, have a common thread running through them. The shooters used guns, usually semi-automatic or fully automatic. The kind designed to inflict as much damage as possible in the shortest time possible. Without the guns, these events could not happen. That’s just a fact. What we do with it is up to us.
I checked Twitter as well. Rihanna weighed in, sending her prayers (check) to the victims, adding an exclamation point ! in her message to let us know just how strongly she felt. Trump tweeted, again with an exclamation point. I’ve never understood why people feel the need to use this form of punctuation when commenting on deadly serious subjects. It seems to cheapen the sentiment, to turn it into spectacle. But then I’m a writer, so I take language very seriously. I guess I should just let them have their declaratory punctuation.
Barack Obama weighed in with a prayers and thoughts tweet, and Hillary Clinton offered an anti-NRA tweet. A little early for that, maybe, but is it ever really too early to talk about getting guns out of people’s hands?
It’s now 12:45 pm and I’ve got CNN on again as I write. My head is literally spinning trying to make sense of the horrors on the TV. It’s absolutely tragic, is what it is, and that’s an understatement. I can’t even imagine what the families of the victims are going through right now. This was an act of pure evil, as Trump said, and as a progressive Democrat that may be the first time I’ve fully agreed with the President. But he nailed it. It was evil, it was dark, it was ugly, it was raw and vile.
It’s 1:10 pm, and a new detail just emerged. The shooter had a pilot’s licence. I’m not sure what that says about him. One would think that if you take the trouble to learn how to fly, then you are fully engaged with life, and you enjoy experiencing life and nature’s pleasures. Flying represents freedom, vitality, power and joy, which are all opposite to the atrocious acts of death that Stephen Paddock committed. So I’m even more confused now.
The more coverage I watch, the more I wonder, do all the little details really matter? What matters is that there is something wrong with America, because mass shootings like Las Vegas have become the norm, not the exception. How did we get to a place where we accept these acts as part of the status quo? Because they are simply unacceptable. We shouldn’t have to live in fear that every time we step outside our homes into a public space, there’s a chance we could become targets of a shooter. That’s just poisonous to the mind, body and soul. We need to be free, to walk in our neighborhoods, to take trips to new cities, to enjoy outdoor concerts, without fear of mass casualties. That’s what we need.
And why does this keep happening in America? What has led to a situation in which there are so many individuals with such anger in their hearts, such hatred, that they feel emboldened to kill, and to kill on a massive scale? Perhaps it’s the polarization in our nation, the anger and the aggression that plays out in our political debates. There’s no question that the Internet and social media play a role, with their disinhibiting effects. People can say or do whatever they want on the Internet, with no fear of retribution save a digital rebuke.
So maybe this feeds the beast of hatred and evil hearts, as citizens go online, get angrier and angrier, and then decide to act on their anger in the real world. It’s just a theory, but there’s no doubt the Internet has ratcheted up the volume on our national discourse of disagreement.
There are plenty of other theories as well, and of course there’s the gun reality again. There are, what, over 200 million weapons in private hands in the United States of America? That’s a lot of weaponry, enough for mass shooting every day for almost a million years. Like I said, I don’t want to wade too heavily into the gun debate at this stage. But the facts are clear as day, and the guns are as deadly as ever. It’s something to think about, that’s for sure.
A larger question, and something I’ve thought about often, is is there something rotten in our national body politic? Has something taken hold within America that has reduced citizens’ love for and respect of their fellow man? Because it seems we’ve all turned inward, moving into planned communities with politically and socially like-minded fellow citizens. Geography plays a big part, as urban cores get more liberal and blue, while suburbs and especially rural areas turn red.
I even saw a guy interviewed recently on CNN who runs a successful company that specializes in moving families from Blue areas to Red areas. If that’s not a sign of something wrong, I don’t know what is. I mean if we can’t even live near people we disagree with, how are we ever going to eat together, work together, go to school together, or simply coexist? And when you never encounter someone different from you, it just makes it that much easier to go out and, well, kill them whenever the urge strikes you, as it apparently did for wretched Stephen Paddock.
As I write this now, Wolf Blitzer just announced an upcoming update from a Las Vegas hospital where dozens of people are fighting for their lives. Jesus Christ. What kind of tear in the universe, what rip in the Milky Way, would allow an act to happen that leaves dozens of people literally fighting for their lives? It seems as if the gods of the universe, maybe Zeus himself, are conspiring against America. All I know is, those people need some good fortune now, some deliverance from the evil that cut them down. I hope they get it soon, I hope they all survive and go on to live full, happy, productive, flourishing lives, just to stick it to Zeus, the universe, and wicked Stephen Paddock.
As I reflect on the tragedy and watch videos of the carnage on TV loops, I feel an incredible sense of sadness along with my anger. Because when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, this kind of thing just didn’t happen, or if it did, it was extremely rare. It’s not only gun laws that have changed in America, with new loopholes emerging, but something else as well. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I do know that things are just different now, more dark, more angry, more raw, more malignant, and more insidious. The national community fabric has a huge tear in it, and we need to sew it up, and sew it up fast, before we all end up shooting each other from high floors of hotels.
My head is spinning now, and all I can think to do is to do something positive, to be out in the world, to be around people, or maybe to call my mother and tell her I love her. Maybe both. It’s just a time when you want to cling to the positives in life, because reality is just so freaking horrible. So I’m going to head out, go the gym, and maybe have a coffee at an outdoor cafe. They just announced that the nation will have a moment of silence at 2:45 pm. So I’ll participate in that. And I’ll just make sure to tell the people in my life that I love them. I’ll also keep the victims of Las Vegas in my heart and in my memories. And I’ll pray for better days, for Las Vegas and for the nation. Because God knows, we all need it.
