mistressofmuses | (no subject)

Another mass shooting, this one in Boulder, CO. That's less than an hour from me.

I just feel *tired.*

There hasn't been a lot of information released - there was a delayed press conference, but the answer to almost every question was "that will be part of the investigation."

So far it's been confirmed that there was a shooting in a King Soopers (our local Kroger supermarket chain), leaving multiple fatalities, one of whom was a police officer. It seems very likely that the man on a video of the police response, who was led out in handcuffs, and also appeared to be injured, is the suspected shooter. Local reports (not officially confirmed) state a total of six fatalities.

One of our friends said her office building was visible on the helicopter footage of the scene, and that was very surreal for her.

Almost all of these kinds of events provoke a little of that "could have been me" feeling, because they're often so random (in terms of location, though often the targets are selected deliberately), and because they happen so horrifically frequently in this country.
This one feels little more that way because it happened in a city I drive through at least every couple of months, where I have friends that I talk to frequently. In a grocery store with the same logo as the one Alex and I visit every couple of days. Then I start worrying about "what if this had happened here, and Alex had been running errands at the time? What if he'd been in there?"

And then someone reminded me of the NRA tweeting back on the 16th about their "victory" in declaring specifically Boulder's ban on AR-15s and high-capacity magazines unconstitutional. And I am just SO tired.

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That's just so fucking horrible, and I'm shattered that the mass shootings are back, and you're right. It does make you think...gee, could it be me next? Could it be someone I love next?

What makes me so mad is that my brother and sister-in-law are going to shooting classes for their license to open carry. Okay. I mean, they're old and in shit health. They live in the country and there have been break-ins at their neighbors' once or twice. BUT I don't see why he needs all the guns he's been buying over the last year, and I hate the way they defend gun rights but not the people being murdered and certainly they're refusing to see them as hate crimes committed by white terrorists.

Sometimes -- just sometimes -- I wish that I would get shot (and sometimes killed) just so that my brother would have to face how close the consequences of his view points could come to touching him.

Though I'm sure that my sister-in-law would find some way to justify it happening to me.

It's terrible. I'm at a point where I don't even know what to say, because it's just so horrible.

The Columbine shooting happened when I was in elementary school, in the same district I was in. I remember our school going into lockdown. At the time, it was (rightfully!) treated as a horrible, senseless tragedy. And now it's... almost commonplace. Granted that the shooting yesterday wasn't in a school (which I'm glad for, but it's not like grocery workers and shoppers deserve to die more), but even this morning, it was already almost out of the news. The Governor posted, and local news shared the new info about the shooter and the victims, but... people had already moved on. It was barely a blip on the national news.

I'm so sorry you're going through so much with your brother and his wife. I can't imagine how shitty that is. (I have some family with awful opinions and politics and bullshittery, but they're fortunately all more distant.)
I certainly hope you aren't ever injured or killed in a shooting! But I very much know that feeling of "if something happening to me could make you see the consequences of this, it'd almost be worth it..."
Of course, your sister-in-law would probably just say that you'd be alive/unharmed if you'd been armed and shot first. *eyeroll*

I remember when Columbine happened. I was in my 20s and had just been introduced to Marilyn Manson's music, which I still love to this day (sorry not sorry in re: to the accusations of abuse - I'll like his music even if I don't support him because of the accusations), and all the religious nutjobs were blaming his music for Columbine. It was all so gross and terrifying. I know that even down in Corpus, the high schools were all side-eyeing the students and I think it was around then that they started to install metal detectors.

Ultimately, Joe and Linda *are* good people. But Linda is super conservative politically (she is *mostly* an LGBTQIA ally but has the "I don't want to learn new terminology...why can't people just say *....*?" bullshit attitude not to mention other attitudes that make me want to slap her), and she's worked Joe into that poor oppressed white straight Christian conservative male frenzy, so...yeah. And his paranoia that they're going to have their home broken into while they're there is just...annoying. I mean. I get buying one or two pistols. Sure. Okay. But Joe's bought several guns and Linda has several, and they don't have a safe they keep them in because their home is small and there's not much room, and I just...don't want to be there anymore. And yeah, I mean, I really don't WANT to be shot and killed because I'm not that depressed anymore (haha), but sometimes it would almost be worth it to rub their noses in their shitty attitude. I wouldn't want my sister to be left with that, though, because she doesn't deserve the guilt that she would absolutely feel if it happened, and yeah, Linda would totally say that. Joe might, too. "Well, if she would've bought a gun like I wanted her to..." Because Joe really wants Kathy and me to have guns, and neither of us want one. We're not anti-gun. We just don't want guns for ourselves. I have two axes (I need to sharpen them) and a baseball bat (one axe and the bat are in my car). I also want to get back into archery. And axe throwing. I don't want a loud gun, and I wish my brother would quit pushing that at us.

This comment is late to the party, but it is WAY past time we do something about gun violence in this country. It's disgusting that the NRA is convincing people they need guns just so gun manufacturers can keep selling them. And that people think their guns are worth more than someone's life.

It's such a horrifying thing here. The way that so many people convince themselves that somehow they *need* a weapon... and so often a weapon that isn't intended for anything other than killing a lot of things very quickly. (And I'm not even completely anti-gun! But I *am* anti- having your own armory full of guns and ammo that has no use other than trying to very efficiently do a lot of harm.)
And I am EXTREMELY angry every time people seem to shrug off the victims of gun violence as "unfortunate necessity", that somehow we just have to accept that innocent people will be killed, so that a bunch of shitheads can live their hero militia fantasies.