Back to mass shootings as usual

 

   In my last post, I wrote about how I am worried that we’ll go back to business as usual after the pandemic.  I said that I hope that we’ve learned some valuable lessons from the pandemic, about slowing down, about having more quiet time, about being kinder and gentler with each other. 

   It doesn’t look like this will be the case, at least not recently.  Just as we’re seeing our way out of the pandemic (hopefully), just as things are looking up after a long, horrible year of illness, deaths and isolation, there have been two mass shootings in the last week or so.  One was at massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia, leaving eight dead, and the other was at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, in which 10 were killed. 

   The quiet in the last year was noticeable – and no illusion.  Unlike in the previous ten years, there were no mass shootings, defined as an incident in which more than four people are killed, during this first year of the pandemic.  A blessed rest.  (Although I did read that there were 1400 gun deaths – average, run-of-the-mill, not newsworthy fatal shootings – last year.) For whatever reason – fewer busy public spaces (schools, churches, etc.) during lock-downs, not many mental health services available during this time, pent-up frustration after such a year – the quiet has been shattered. 

   And we’re back to the way things were before the pandemic.  We’re back to business as usual, back to our normal.  We are going from the COVID-19 pandemic to, or back to, the gun violence pandemic (not to mention the pandemic of racism, which often combines with the gun violence).

   As it was teased for a 11 p.m newscast, “we’re back to our violent ways.”