Anniversary: Columbine

Sometimes you just say one word and everyone gets what you're saying.

Columbine.

We'd had shootings before. We'd had mass shootings before. We'd had school shootings before. But this was a turning point in our nation's sad long history of gun violence.

With Columbine, there came this awareness of the immediacy of the act. Our news coverage - in 1999 with 24/7 cable news, today with livestreaming social media - could make a school shooting in any part of the country a sudden kick to the collective gut. It's the kind of violence that can't be ignored, aimed at our families and our communities.

Columbine became a focal point for others on the edge, driven to seek their vengeance against anything and everything. The second a school shooting happens, the earliest question tends to be "was it someone inspired by the Columbine shooters?" and sadly it's common enough for the answer to be "Yes." The Parkland shooter researched Columbine before he went on his own rampage.

And Columbine became one of those turning points where America couldn't come to terms with our violent gun culture. Despite efforts in the 1990s to restrict firearms and limit access to military-level weaponry, we had by 1999 a gun show loophole that the shooters exploited - underage gun purchases were/are otherwise banned - and which is still in existence.

Confronted with a growing problem of easier access of firearms to the wrong people, we've had the NRA and their political allies refuse time and again to allow greater gun safety laws, to limit the kind of damage a mass shooting like Columbine can inflict. Thanks to their inaction/interference, we've had far too many mass shootings since April 1999. Sandy Hook. Virginia Tech. Parkland. And too many to count.

Parkland happened just last year. Close to the anniversary of Columbine. There's been a lot of media attention about the synchronicity between the two tragedies, and the survivors of one are reaching out and connecting with the others as a kind of bookend.

Except it's not the end of it. We're still dealing with a nation where the political leadership won't listen to or connect to the vast majority of people who are begging for an end to out-of-control gun violence.

Columbine wasn't a beginning, more of a warning alarm. Parkland isn't the end, more of a reminder that our schools are targets.

It's been twenty years of one tragedy. Right now, I dread the fate of whichever poor school in twenty years has to share its pain with Parkland survivors.

Goddamn us.

The Future

Link to Latina.com article

This is Emma Gonzalez.

She is one of the teens who survived the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland FL.

She is just eighteen years old (or close to it).

She probably hasn't even figured out what she's wearing to her prom, if she's going.

She's facing down the NRA, the Republican Party, the gun crazies, everyone who doesn't support gun safety laws.

She's terrifying them to the point where they're openly insulting her, creating fake photoshopped images of her, doing everything they can to dismiss her.

She won't go away.

Emma Gonzalez is the future. Her and hundreds of thousands like her: teenagers and college students who grew up in the shadow of Columbine and are sick to death over the inaction and cowardice of the Republicans refusing to do anything to reduce/end gun violence in our nation.

She's going to be old enough to vote this year, her and hundreds of thousands like her. All of them single-issue voters willing to vote every pro-NRA pol out of office. Which affects every Republican pol currently in office.

If she can't vote this year, she certainly will by 2020, when it's a Presidential cycle and there's more at stake for the GOP. Her and hundreds of thousands like her.

I should say "millions" instead of "hundreds of thousands", but you get the drift.

The Republican strategists saw decades ago a demographic shift away from white majority population, and then gambled hard on going all-in on stoking white voter fears to create a voting base that gave them victories but declining overall support. That white voter base - mostly older, mostly uneducated, mostly wingnut - is getting outnumbered by the Millennial generation that's more educated, more tech-savvy, more angry at injustice. We're getting to the tipping point where that Whites-Only strategy kills the GOP.

We're getting to the point where the Face of America isn't Ivanka Trump.

The Face of America is Emma Gonzalez.

The future is hers.

March For Our Lives in Lakeland (w/ Update)

Today the teens of our nation took to the streets to protest against school shootings, against weapons of death, against political inaction due to the NRA's overwhelming influence on government.

Via NBC News:

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of students gathered in the nation's capitol and at sister marches across the country and around the world to deliver a powerful, unified message: Enough is enough...

...Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organized and hosted the main event on the mall in Washington with the U.S. Capitol in the background, a stark reminder of why they were demanding change.

"We hereby promise to fix the broken system we've been forced into and create a better world for the generations to come," Cameron Kasky, one of the student organizers told a cheering crowd filled with teenagers. "Don't worry, we've got this..."

The most powerful moment came when Emma Gonzalez, one of the more prominent Parkland students in the movement, gave her speech:

After listing the names of the 17 people killed when a gunman rampaged through her school on Valentine's Day, Gonzalez asked the crowd to fathom how so many could be murdered in only 6 minutes and 20 seconds.

And then she stopped speaking.

Silent minutes ticked by. Then an alarm beeped.

"Since the time that I came out here, it has been 6 minutes and 20 seconds," she said finally. "The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape and walk free for an hour before arrest."

She added: "Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job."

I just wanna live long enough to vote for her as President, okay God?

That was all in Washington DC. Here at home, there were shared rallies same as across the nation. In Tampa, they figured they had around 15,000 showing up to call for action on gun safety.

Closer to home, I went to the rally happening in Lakeland, and I got some pics:

Munn Park in downtown Lakeland

The early minutes before the rally began

This was a rally organized by the teens but for all ages to attend!

Voter Registration by the League of Women Voters

The speakers deliver their calls to action, and in poetry

Sharing out the signs

I figured around 100 people showed up

The message is pretty simple:

The kids want stronger gun safety laws.

They're angry at politicians who are in the NRA's pocket who won't do anything about it.

They're registering to vote.

And they are going to vote on this single issue: Guns.

They will vote you out, pols, if you are taking even a penny from the gun-makers and their lobby of doom.

And if you don't think they can't do that, do a head count.

The Millennial generation just got to where they outnumber the Boomers.

Turnout matters, granted, but these kids are on a mission. They're sick of school lockdowns and dreading the day it'll be their turn they won't come home after another mass shooting.

These teens are going to keep working on this issue. They're gonna vote this November.

Gods. This feels good.

Update: As Larry mentions in the comments, there were organized buses of students going to the Orlando protest and not the Tampa one. Orlando had 20,000 show up (!)

Bad News From Florida: Blood On the Streets Of Parkland

I started writing my good news article today this morning.

I just got the word this afternoon about Parkland.

Jesus Christ no.

I lived there, back when I worked in Broward County Libraries. Not exactly in Parkland, but in Tamarac for a few years, then Coconut Creek. I know the neighborhoods, I know those communities.

Jesus Christ.

17 dead.

All because of one angry guy with a military-grade assault rifle.

All because the National Body Count Association owns most of the elected Republicans between here to Alaska. All because the National "Our Guns Matter More Than Your Kids" Association will throw another hissy fit if any sensible gun safety laws even gets mentioned on the floor of Congress.

All because the only thing our elected officials will do is "send thoughts and prayers" as though the last 180,000 times hadn't worked.

We have a national gun death rate comparable to a war zone. We're racking up more kills than the Syrian Civil War this year. I might not even be exaggerating.

We will keep seeing our schools and churches and malls and movie theaters and concert events used for target practice until we do one of two things: Get rid of angry guys or get rid of military-grade assault rifles that make it too goddamn easy to kill.