My neighbour bursts into tears every time I see her. She’s a widow. Her husband departed for work a year ago this week and never returned home. A coworker shot and killed nine people in San Jose, including him. She is saddened by the unexpected loss and incensed by the realization that the tragedy is peculiar to the place they thought was safer than their home.
Surely America, marketed as a place of liberty and daring, would be kind.
In reality, we live in a world of thoughts, prayers, and craven indifference.
On Tuesday, two days shy of a year after the massacre at the VTA railyard, an armed man entered an elementary school in Texas and killed 15 people, including 14 children and one teacher. As he was shooting innocents, the Warriors and Mavericks were preparing for a playoff game that neither coach wanted to talk about.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr was beyond enraged. He shook with rage as he sat on the podium, fire in his eyes and verbal flames flying from his lips.
“Since we left shootaround, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here,” he told me. “And a teacher. In the previous ten days, elderly Black folks have been killed in a Buffalo grocery. We have had Asian churchgoers assassinated in Southern California. We now have children murdered in schools.”
Kerr banged the table as his voice rose.
“When do we plan to do something?
“I am exhausted. I’m so tired of standing up here and extending condolences to the bereaved families out there. I’m so weary of making excuses. I’m bored of the stillness. Enough!”
Kerr then severely blasted the “50 senators” who had refused to vote on HR8, a house bill that established increased background checks on gun purchases and was passed through Congress 14 months ago. It has stalled in the Senate.
“There’s a reason they won’t vote on it: to hold onto power.”
Kerr made an emotional appeal to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and “all you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence in school shootings and supermarket shootings, I ask you, ‘Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children, the elderly, and our churchgoers?'” Because that’s how it appears.
Even as Kerr spoke, the dead toll from the horrible tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde continued to rise. Within an hour, news sources had brought the total to 21 – 19 children and three adults, including a grandmother.
The gunman, who was shot and killed by police, was 18 years old. The white nationalist shooter at Tops store in Buffalo on May 14 was also 18.
According to massshootingtracker.site, the number of mass shootings in the United States has surpassed 250 less than five months into 2022, with 50 happening this month alone. Since January 1, 2013, there have been 4,634 mass shootings involving four or more victims, according to the website.
Kerr’s outrage about the subject dates back to 1984, when his father, Malcolm, was shot and killed by terrorists outside his office at the American University of Beirut. The man who coaches basketball for the Warriors has spent the most of his life dealing with the emotional aftermath of a school shooting.
“I am fed up. I have had enough. “We’re going to play the game tonight,” Kerr announced, his voice rising. “But I want everyone here, and everyone listening to this, to think about their own child, grandchild, mother, father, sister, or brother. How would you react if this happened to you now?
“We cannot become numb to this! We can’t just sit here and say, ‘Well, let’s have a moment of silence.’ Yeah. Go Dubs. Come on, Mavericks. Let’s go! That is what we are going to do. We are going to go play basketball. “And 50 senators in Washington will hold us hostage.”
The vast majority of Americans, recognizing that this is an American issue, have asked legislators to pass stricter gun legislation. We’re talking 80 to 90 percent. However, a small group of people continue to benefit from gun manufacturers and lobbying.
Kerr banged the table once more, raging against “pathetic” lawmakers and saying “I’ve had enough” before walking away.
Yes, as the nation experiences another rubber-stamp “thoughts and prayers” response from those in positions of power, as well as another ceremonial moment of silence, the Warriors and Mavericks will play a basketball game that neither Kerr nor Dallas coach Jason Kidd are inclined to address.
We are a country built on violence and injustice, addicted to firearms, and “led” by a power system committed to keep things that way.
Change? Perhaps that will happen if millions of people experience the misery that my neighbour does every day. And every second of the night.
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