Maybe it’s because it was fairly close (Roanoke is about a hundred miles away), or maybe it’s because I’ve known a fair number of reporters in my time, or maybe it’s because I’ve known a lot of people who work in broadcasting, but this morning’s shootings are getting to me more than these things usually do.
And what really disturbs me here is that I just typed “more than these things usually do” as if random gun violence were a pretty regular and otherwise unremarkable thing. Which, of course, it is here in America, where every crackpot gun nut in the trailer park (or on the golf course) believes himself to be a one-man “well-regulated militia.”
There’s no way in hell you can convince me that we’re going to solve this problem by arming even more people. And the next person who tries to compare this to the shootings in Charleston may get smacked for being an idiot with whom I no longer feel the need to be patient or tolerant.
