At that point I didn’t know any of the specifics, just the broad outlines of a familiar story in my country. Someone had walked into a church, and started killing people. Before I clicked on the headline to hear the details I began to wonder...
I wondered if it was a black church, a white church, a synagogue, mosque or temple.
I wondered if the shooter was a black man, a white man, or a Muslim.
The reason why I wondered these things is because it would make a difference in how my fellow Americans would react.
If the shooter were a Muslim man shouting Allahu Akbar!, we would more or less be united in our outrage.
If the shooter were a white man and the victims black, a different kind of outrage.
If the shooter were a black man and the victims white, different still.
No matter who the shooter is and who the dead are, all of us will do the national gun control dance, charges flying around like so many stray bullets.
Then I clicked on the story. At this point all that is known is, some guy dressed in combat regalia, walked into a small Baptist church attended by less than a hundred people, began shooting and when it was over, nearly everyone in the congregation was either dead or injured, including one five year old child. In the ensuing chase, the shooter was either killed or killed himself. The victims and the shooter are white. At this hour, no claims of terrorism, no claims by ISIS that this shooter was their’s.
For me, the only thing that matters is that 27 souls have perished at the hands of an evil person, bringing the total number of such deaths to over 350 so far this year. That’s over 350 people who have been killed in a “mass shooting” event in America in 2017, a mass shooting event being here described as a single incident where 4 or more people are killed by a single gunman. No other country in the western world comes close to that number. In this regard, we are in a class by ourselves.
What the hell is wrong with us?
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