Who was Playing? Last night in Vegas!



And.. who was playing?

We wake up on a Monday morning, cool autumn hits Austin, after a nice weekend with dinner with Frank's sister and brother-in-law.  Snuggled in bed and the alarm goes off and I do as I do every morning and grab my phone and check the news.

What do I see this morning?  At 5am they thought more than 20 died, by the time I hit the shower over 50 people killed and 200 injured by one man on a balcony at the Mandalay Bay down on a group of people's whose only crime was the joy of country music on a fall evening in Vegas.

What was the first questions to me?  Who was playing?  Why we are growing accustom that on any given day in this country some mad man (tends to be men and mostly white) is going to decide this is his day to take out revenge, kill innocent people, and then perish at the hands of the police or his own hand.

As a country, we are recovering from three hurricanes to hit our shores.  Harvey, Irma and Maria each creating devastation and loss of lives in hours.  We see the best of America, helping each other get to safety in the floods of Houston.  Floridians helping each other rebuild their homes, and stay safe after the storm.  And, we see the military, cruise ships, and others trying to help those devastated in Puerto Rico.

This man, a 64 year old white man from Nevada, at 10:08 Vegas time started shooting and by mid-night he was dead.  In less than 2 hours he killed over 50 people and now they say injured more than 400.  He inflicted as much heart ache and took human lives as these storms that have swept across the panhandle of Florida, hung out on the Texas coat, or devastated Puerto Rico.

Since everyone that is pro-gun rights, said we would be safer in states that have the right to carry and the right to concealed weapons, it would seem this may not have worked as planned in Nevada.  In Nevada, you can can carry concealed weapons with a permit, including semi-automatic weapons, and once permitted buy additional guns without any more background checks, maybe one might want to reconsider or explain where those are to protect our safety?  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Nevada ) I bet we find out our shooter here had a permit, but where were those law abiding citizens with guns that were to protect us?

Let me be clear, I can't think of anything more inane than someone out of the blue pulling out their gun last night to try an shoot down this shooter.  The extra mayhem that would have created would have caused exponential increase in harm and lives lost, and probably the police would have assumed they were an accomplice.  But, following the logic the gun rights lobbies one of would have expected something.

Frank and I went to the Pride parade in Austin, and I am grateful for all of the police marching in the parade and on the streets, but I also woke up this morning wondering in another red state how safe were we really?

At a time when the best of Americans helping one of another recover from hurricanes, we are reminded that we are also the greatest threat to our own safety.

So, who really was playing last night?  and when will we learn the lesson of safety.  Wouldn't sensible gun laws, restriction on semi-automatic weapons ( I mean really!), and true background checks every time someone purchase a gun at least be a minimum to get us to a safer place in a country that seems all too happy to carry guns around? 


Can someone please make sense out of this for me, as I sit more in shock that others around me, and seem harder for me to accept this as a norm in our society.  


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