“In the wake of the Orlando shooting…”
Those seven words were de rigueur lead sentences last week for countless news stories about what should be considered an inconceivable massacre that left 49 murdered and 53 injured June 12 at a Florida gay nightclub.
Such an event should be inconceivable, and would have been 10 years ago perhaps. These days such incidents are heartbreaking, certainly. But inconceivable? No, not anymore. The city names of San Bernardino (Dec. 2, 2015: 14 dead, 22 wounded); Colorado Springs (Nov. 29, 2015: three dead, nine injured); Roseburg (Oct. 1, 2015: nine dead, nine injured); Chattanooga (July 16, 2015: five dead, three wounded); and Charleston (June 18, 2015: nine dead) have all spent news cycles this past year synonymously linked to mass shootings and brutal murder. From Charleston through Orlando, that makes about one every 60 days. The past 12 months have been a busy year for the wholesale slaughter of Americans.
At press time, the Orlando shooting was still the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. I stress: at press time.
If laws allowing easy public access to machines built to kill as many humans as possible – in as short a time as possible – continue unchecked, other city names will make their way to this infamous pantheon.
Sonoma joining that list still seems rather unlikely – though it’s no longer inconceivable. If that seems like a stretch, consider two events that took place last weekend: Gay Pride Night for the Sonoma Stompers and Gay Wine Weekend, Out in the Vineyards’ annual LGBTQ soiree at MacArthur Place. Both the Stompers and Out in the Vineyards sought additional security from the Sheriff’s office for their events – requests that seemingly never occurred for the organizations to make in prior years. Yet this week, the beefed up security seemed like a sound safety precaution. How things change.
But the public being on higher alert for nuts bearing AK-15s isn’t the type of change that’s going to matter. What will matter is keeping the AK-15s away from the nuts – or, in a more general sense, making it as difficult as possible for the next Omar Mateen to secure the kind of weaponry to make such an unbridled nightmare even possible.
Most Sonomans probably have little faith in the current NRA-cowering Congress to take any meaningful action. But, closer to home, there’s already been some progress. Last week, state legislators advanced 11 gun-safety bills that had been introduced earlier this year; however, in the wake of Orlando, state Senate and Assembly leaders are speeding up the legislation in order to strike while the iron is tragically hot.
The bills aren’t in themselves total difference makers for gun-control advocates – nor are they earth shattering setbacks for those with broad interpretations of the Second Amendment. The bills deal with gun storage, tracking of stolen weapons, registration of assault rifles, manufacturer serial numbers, etc.
Yes, National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre would have you believe that allowing mental-health workers to request year-long restraining orders against their more troubling patients from purchasing weapons (AB 2607) would be some sort of Big Government assault on the “right to bear arms.” It’s that kind of mentality that allows for the late 30-year-old Orlando-resident Eddie Justice to text his mom from the bloodied restroom of the Pulse nightclub that, “He’s coming. I’m gonna die…he’s in the bathroom with us… I love u.”
Mateen had purchased a Sig Sauer assault rifle from St. Lucie Gun Sales on June 4 and then a Glock 17 from there on June 5; he waited until June 9 to buy the magazines. He was listed on two federal “watch lists” but his purchases were still swift. And deadly.
We urge the state legislature to embrace all 11 of the gun-safety bills and forward them to the Governor’s desk for quick signage.
They likely won’t prevent another Orlando, or whichever city name takes its place next at the top of the Google news search.
But maybe it’ll hedge our bets a bit that “We are Orlando” won’t become a “We are Sonoma.”
Inconceivable be damned.
Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.
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