In Raleigh: Another mass shooting, another week where gun violence plagues America
On Monday, a popular website named Raleigh one of the nation’s safest cities.
On Wednesday, a jury awarded nearly $1 billion to parents of children slain in Newtown, Ct., in 2012 whose grief was compounded by the radio monster Alex Jones’ claims that the killings were staged by actors promoting an anti-gun agenda.
On Thursday, a jury spared the life of the shooter who killed 17 in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., sentencing him to life in prison instead.
And on Thursday evening, a teenager dressed in camouflage and carrying a long rifle killed five people in Raleigh, including an off-duty police officer. Two others were shot. Raleigh police arrested a 15-year-old white male who is now in the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
This is a week in America.
This is the veneer of safety, the sense that it won’t happen here shattered by the explosive sound of gunfire, the innocent dead, a neighborhood drenched in the blue lights of police vehicles and people caught between the shock and the trauma of “not here” and “not again.”
There is much we do not know about what happened on or near the leafy greenway that runs by the Neuse River and golf course community of Hedingham. And perhaps we will never know the depths of anger, depression and delusion that drove the shooter.
But this much we do know: A young man with a powerful gun killed people at random in what has now become a predictable pattern of mass shootings in America, a pattern distinct to America.
Before the details of the horror were known, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin recognized the character of this assault. It has happened in so many places and now here.
“Tonight terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh. This is a senseless, horrific and infuriating act of violence that has been committed,” Cooper told reporters.
Baldwin also touched on the plague of mass shootings.
“We must stop this mindless violence in America, we must address gun violence,” the mayor said. “We have much to do, and tonight we have much to mourn.”
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” has been the inane argument of those who want virtually unlimited access to guns. No, people with guns kill people, and they kill more people when the guns are more lethal.
Most mass shootings are not about mental illness. That’s a neglected issue, yes, but many shooters are not mentally ill. They are angry or depressed or hungry for recognition and they have easy access to a gun, often an assault-style weapon designed for mass killing.
What is insane is the idea that more guns will make Americans safer. So many gun victims testify to the opposite.
As Mayor Baldwin said, “There is much to mourn.” But can that mourning lead to action? Can politicians find the courage to stand up to this recurring carnage?
Probably, no. Past mass shootings have not led to a reconsideration of Second Amendment zealotry that ignores the words “well regulated.”
This shooting will likely be met with the same inaction. But there are signs that gun violence is becoming intolerable.
Congress has made small, but significant steps to control access to guns. North Carolina’s legislature, which meets not far from this latest mass shooting, should take steps as well to quell the rapid fire sound of terror and the long strains of sorrow.
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 7:43 AM with the headline "In Raleigh: Another mass shooting, another week where gun violence plagues America."