A Guy Walks Into a Bar...

I had no words for a very long time.  I call myself a writer, and yet today I found myself unable to write anything appropriate.

On Saturday night, rising star Christina Grimmie was shot and killed as she signed autographs for her fans.

Early Sunday morning a man walked into a gay bar that was packed with over 300 people celebrating Pride.  Within half an hour, 50 people were dead, more than 50 wounded, and a community was in shock.

Mere hours later, a heavily-armed man who supposedly was on his way to the Los Angeles Pride Parade was arrested.  Quick thinking by people on the street could very well have stopped a similar occurrence.

Again.  And again.  The violence seems to be never-ending.  It's happening so often that many people can't even react any more.

Naturally the media is tearing apart the suspects in any way possible - their names, their heritage, their affiliations - looking for anything to lay blame on.  Few people are addressing the elephant in the room.  Few people want to because pro-gun organizations will most likely shout them down if they do.

I will lay the blame on hatred.  Hatred of that which is different: women, gays, members of a specific religion, whatever you can think of.  And I blame the coincidence of living in a place where access to high-powered firearms is easy enough so that the avenue to act on that hatred is there.

Twenty children lost their lives to a mentally ill gunman in 2012.  Every shooting since then has been followed by platitudes and calls for action but nothing has changed.  The United States has become a country where "others" - children, gays, women, people of colour - have become acceptable losses for a culture that insists on having an armed population.

That is no longer a "well-regulated militia".  That is anarchy.  And a disturbingly high percentage of people want to vote in a leader who wants more of the same.

It's not going to get any better.

Not unless enough people care about what happens to their fellow humans.