What a sad weekend. Words stick in my hands, unable to be written. I wish this was more elegant.
If you want elegance, please enjoy some flowers from my garden in 2019. Happier times!
The rest of this post is a bit grim, so please feel free to admire the flowers on your way out. But I hope you'll stay.
As my United States readers know, there was a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, at a supermarket. 13 people shot, 10 dead, the alleged shooter (whose name I will not use) in police custody. Buffalo is the second largest city in New York State after New York City. It is also the home town of our current Governor.
The alleged shooter is an 18 year old man from Conklin, New York, which is about 15 miles from where I live near Binghamton, New York. Conklin is a small community of about 5,000 people.
Our community here in the Binghamton area knows about mass shootings. We have felt the pain that so many communities have felt.
On April 3, 2009 (as my regular readers know) a mass shooting several blocks from where I used to work in Binghamton took the lives of 13 innocents and the man who killed them. That shooting convinced me to start this blog. That shooter lived locally and bought the gun locally (at a sporting goods store now closed).
The school psychologist at Sandy Hook grew up in Vestal, another town in our area.
But these shootings were not like our shooting. Buffalo's pain is not our pain. Our shooting didn't involve a young man who drove some 200 miles to target members of a Black community. He picked the only supermarket in the area. He must have known that, sooner or later, everyone in that community shopped there.
What else are we learning? This man graduated from high school and was apparently attending our local community college. He also live streamed the
shooting (which was taken down but other sites keep posting it) and published a long manifesto with his beliefs. He drank from the poison waters of extremist sites. He came with weapons inscribed with symbols and words of hate. This was, pure and simple, a crime of hate.
He purchased
his Bushmaster semi-automatic weapon locally in the Binghamton area (although it was modified after sale in a way that would not be
legal in New York.) The gun shop that sold the gun is now being targeted on social media, and has closed for this week, and I will not name it.
These are some of those he killed. Reports state he had planned to visit other sites to continue his spree but the Buffalo police came too quickly. It's also reported that he may have also scouted out Rochester another major New York city, for a shooting.
By all accounts, this Buffalo neighborhood is a close knit community, and the residents are coming together in their grief as they now have nowhere to buy food.
Worse yet, this wasn't the only active shooter event in our country this weekend. It was just the most deadly. There was a church shooting in Laguna Hills, California, also described as a hate crime. That shooting was stopped by a heroic doctor who died. There was a shooting in a flea market in Houston. There were shootings in several locations in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There were other shootings that didn't even make the news.
No community is immune from the poison of hatred or the easy availability of weapons, and we ask ourselves again, "why?" If we aren't minorities who are targets of hate crimes (people of color, Americans of Asian-Pacific origin, various religions) we may live in fear, a fear we don't dare show as we go about our everyday lives. (I say "we" because I am a member of one of those groups). But make no mistake, everyone in this country is at risk. Hatred is out of control. It has become mainstream.
Americans have asked that question of "why" too many times now, in this nation.
How many times is too many?
Or will we offer thoughts and prayers yet again, and then move on, leaving the families and friends of Buffalo, of Laguna Hills, of Winston-Salem, of Houston, of previous sites like El Paso, Pittsburgh, Orlando, and Sacramento...so many other towns and places where hate has surfaced, to pick their lives back up?
This time, what will we choose to do?
...the term alleged shooter seems misused in this case. He live streamed the massacre!
ReplyDeleteYou have to use the word “alleged” until it’s proven in court.
DeleteYou have to use the word “alleged” until it’s proven in court.
DeleteI knew this would be your topic today even before I saw your post, even before I heard he was a student at SUNY Broome. I hear the words and I know how much they upset you. I am also sickened by the violence and I am wondering when our elected officials will finally do something.
ReplyDeleteYou are a good mindreader, Songbird. Thank you.
DeleteYou’ve spoken so eloquently on this topic before. I just knew.
DeleteAgain, and again, and again... "What will we choose to do?" You know the answer. The same thing we've always done. Nothing. Too many value guns over lives. Then we have elected officials saying either it didn't happen, or it was our own government. They are crazy, and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI do know the answer. And meanwhile, we in the Binghamton area are just...stunned.
DeleteI see it in the mask protests where people are photographed bristling with guns and defiant chins in the air. And I see it in every. Single. Shooting. Our beloved Americas have a new God. The gun.
ReplyDeleteI thought of you immediately when I heard the news. I think if we're ever going to make in impact on hate based crimes, we have to start with the lies and bigoted misinformation freely fed to those who are vulnerable.
ReplyDeleteThoughts and prayers seem to be all we ever offer in these circumstances. That will continue as long as our elected representatives are in thrall to the gun lobby. Unfortunately, I see no end in sight to that.
ReplyDeleteI just can't anymore. Too many politicians are in the pockets of the NRA. If they weren't, the guns would have been banned a long time ago, or at least there'd be better protections in place.
ReplyDeleteWe have a political party that is promoting the anthem of hatred that is used for most of these mass shootings. It's time to vote those who promote death out of office.
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad, I am not sure what could be done that would help,
ReplyDelete