Let’s talk about guns, again

Part 5: The Context

A year ago, I wrote this piece following the shooting in Parkland, Florida. It was the single hardest thing I’ve ever written. I debated if I should simply update the statistics for this year, but I knew deep down, that it would accomplish little more than make me well up with tears yet again.

If 30 mass shootings weren’t enough, what makes anyone think that 50 or 70 or even 1,000 would be? Clearly the sheer body count does little to make a dent in the national consciousness these days.

I could add all the places that have been impacted by mass shootings since that piece was written, including a yoga studio, another slew of schools, a bar, and now an industrial park. But would it make a difference?

Prior to writing that piece for Medium, I had reached out to the Washington Post editorial board regarding an op-ed they had published about mass shootings in America. I pointed out that the NIU shooting wasn’t mentioned in their data, and I received an incredible response — an entirely new editorial about a simple, yet soul-crushing concept: there are simply so many mass shootings in this country that we can no longer list them all properly.

I encourage everyone to read that editorial, if only because it features the words of Mary Kay Mace, the mother of Ryanne, an inspiring woman with a beautiful heart.

That editorial points to a larger angle at work in today’s America however, one that I’d like to explore in this essay: not only are Americans significantly more likely to experience gun violence than any other developed nation, but now, Americans are being faced with multiple experiences with gun violence.

Part 6: Recurring Nightmares

I want to start this discussion with a personal anecdote. Last year on Valentine’s Day, I was standing in the cold outside Cole Hall on NIU’s campus. Every year, the school holds a memorial service for those lost in 2008. The community gathers for a moment of peace and reflection; each year, 5 students are awarded a memorial scholarship for their commitment to the community at large. I was blessed enough to receive that scholarship in the spring of 2014. I carry that privilege with me each day.

During the moment of silence, my phone buzzed gently in my pocket, as did those of a few other folks in the crowd. It was a CNN news alert about the Parkland shooting. Here we were, a community mourning its own, being notified of another community suffering that same twisted fate.

Imagine how distinctly emptying that feeling is. How visceral of a moment that must have been for those most deeply impacted by the service at hand. How brutally and uniquely American a feeling.

That is a feeling I wish on no one else in the world.

This past weekend, the NIU community was struck again by mass violence, as a Huskie student and a young alumnus were both among those killed in Aurora, Illinois.

Northern Illinois isn’t especially unique in its pain these days. Our campus is just one of a growing list of schools who have faced down the horror; our students just some of the many blindsided by a violent experience.

I want you to take a moment to think about what this means. NIU now has to specify which mass shooting its students were killed in.

Nationally, we have to wonder which city of Aurora shooting you’re talking about. We are now a society so accustomed to mass shootings that we have to make efforts to parse them out.

Perhaps the best example of this grimly American phenomenon is the shooting in Thousand Oaks, California.

Twelve people were shot and killed at Borderline Bar and Grill — it was College Country Music Night. The bar had become a popular hangout for survivors of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. A number of people in the crowd that night had been in Vegas and were now facing the nightmare again.

Telemachus Orfanos, 27, died in Thousand Oaks after surviving Las Vegas. His mother, Susan Schmidt-Orfanos made an impassioned plea for gun control following his death.

Telemachus was a Navy veteran. He survived Afghanistan. He survived Las Vegas. How many run-ins with gun violence is any one man expected to have to survive in this country? How many nights are parents like Susan expected to wait by the phone for news of their son’s status?

These are difficult questions that we, as a people, need to answer. We owe it to all those who continue to suffer at the hands our own inaction and national cowardice.

Part 7: An Inconvenient Conclusion

I wrote this as a follow up simply because I didn’t know what else to do. A dear friend and former professor of mine sent me a message shortly after the latest shooting in Aurora. She was sitting at her desk in Zulauf Hall (directly next to the Cole Hall memorial), heartbroken wondering how she would continue to place interns from her program after this event. I didn’t then know how to respond — I still don’t. I suspect she may read this, and to her, I can only say that Northern is strong and we will always move Forward, Together. I hope you know that you are never alone, in this, the community of the hurting.

I’m extraordinarily tired of getting those CNN notifications. I’m heartsick knowing that another NIU president had to pen another memorial message. I wish I had a better ending to this essay — and perhaps someday I’ll find the words for a proper third part that discusses Heller, and the failures of Congress to even attempt to solve this moral crisis, and the sheer political maliciousness of the NRA. I hope to.

But today isn’t about all those things, important as they may be. Today was about me writing to clear my head; to find some comfort in writing; and to tell a story that I think needed telling.

It is altogether fitting and proper given that violence continues to strike around Valentine’s Day, that we remember to show love and kindness to all those around us.

“Saying you love someone is not enough, it’s how you treat them that shows your true feelings,” — Ryanne Mace.