Virginia Tech, Columbine High School, Sandy Hook Elementary, Aurora’s Century 16 movie theatre, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inland Regional Center, and Pulse Nightclub all have an unsought for cataclysmic trademark.
My understanding of the Sandy Hook and Aurora shooting was very limited because of age and media exposure. However, after the Charleston church mass shooting in South Carolina on June 17, 2015 I asked: how much worse is it going to get? It was later revealed in those days, as news outlets obtained more information, that a young child played dead in order to survive. That was it.
Nefarious events have occurred since. The most recent one being the worst mass shooting in U.S. history where 49 people died and 53 were injured at an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub called Pulse. The proximity of this tragedy galvanized unsettling emotions of fear and heartache once again. Scenarios have circulated in my mind – what if someone I knew was there? What if I was there? What if it happened in my hometown of Miami and not Orlando?
In a MSNBC coverage clip shown on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Florida Senator, Marco Rubio said, “This could have happened anywhere in the world, unfortunately today was Orlando’s turn.” Coming from someone who argued that the radical words of extremists is one of the biggest challenges we face, the carelessness of using words such as “Orlando’s turn” sure does seem questionable. I’d say Florida’s state government is one of the biggest challenges Floridians face. My advice to Senator Rubio: consider your wordage if you agree that words hold significance.
The frustration doesn’t stop with Senator Rubio, however. Florida Governor Rick Scott and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi have avoided answering questions about potential gun regulations and have avoided addressing their record showing opposition to the LGBTQ community. Instead, they replied by saying the time to discuss those issues will follow later. I ask then, when will it be time? Was Newton not the time? What about San Bernardino? Aurora? Charleston? Our collective persistence as a society comes from exhaustion of continuously seeing lives lost to bullets.
The state representation in Florida is a glass half empty, almost entirely empty. The fallen will never achieve their goals and dreams, the families and friends will live with a reminder that a loved one was wrongfully taken yet no one in power makes any concerning or sympathetic effort to take action to prevent another shooting. Mass shootings have become a normalized tragedy in my country. They’ve occurred continuously in sacred places to affect us profoundly. To see the insouciance of lives lost and lives hurt is a tragedy in itself. How many more thoughts and prayers will they tell us to send out to the world?
America has broken my heart, but I remove from that heartache the subsequent love and support that occur throughout the world that remind me of that tranquil moment between dawn and the sunrise: an unbeknownst still hope. And 869 lives have been lost to shootings, however I do not and will never desensitize emotionally to these events. I mourn the lives of strangers because I’d rather the pain than apathy. I also won’t dismiss the reality of hatred but I choose to see the good rather than the bad. That is what I choose to validate. United, we save ourselves from those against our humanity.
The names change, the count changes, yet the common denominator of a gun does not. And neither does the denominator of love. Activism in groups such as Everytown serves as a basis for unity and action. Everytown is a non-profit organization working to end gun violence in the United States. Their website, everytown.org, approaches the issues concerning guns and provides statistics on gun violence. With over 3 million supporters, Everytown has created a monumental movement to disarm hate. Their current petition asks Congress to:
Make it illegal for people convicted of violent hate crimes to buy or possess guns
Make it illegal for suspected terrorists to legally buy guns,
Require a background check for every gun sale, no matter where you buy a gun or who you buy it from
My heart goes out to the LatinX and LGBTQ community. I stand with you as so many others do. The intrusion of a safe place and of a home invokes absolute fear. But strength and love overpower, rising like a phoenix’s rebirth.
