Raising Voices: Horrible-No-Good-Very-Bad-Weeks Edition

You’ve heard about Alexander and his Horrible-No-Good-Very-Bad-Day, and we’re having some of those weeks in gun violence. Hopefully it won’t be months…but it’s not looking good.*

One of the most heart-breaking and disturbing recent stories is the story of Renisha McBride. Some details are still unclear, but it seems she was in a car accident late at night and she went looking for help; she may have been injured. She was shot in the face by a homeowner on his porch. She was killed. She was unarmed, 19, and alone.

For many of us, it’s one more tragedy to add to the line of Trayvon, Darius, Jordan, Jonathan, and on and on. These tragic deaths are not the majority of deaths, but they are some of the most preventable – and thus most enraging.

And then there’s another type of shooting that is rare compared to everyday violence and gun suicides. The last two weeks have had much more than their share of ONE mass shooting — much, much more.

Global Grind questions the “chance” of four mass shootings happening in one week (the “average” is one every two weeks).

Mark Alexander, a law professor at Seton Hall University tells us to “stop the hand-wringing and speechifying” about the 2nd Amendment : Have We Said Enough About Gun Violence?

In New Jersey, we had a native son terrorize hundreds of people when he shot several people and killed a TSA agent at LAX.

Just days later, Paramus had a shooting at New Jersey’s largest mall – thankfully, the shooter harmed only himself physically — but his sad ending caused fear and deep trauma in those who were inside the mall at the time.

Read Rabbi Shmuley’s experience here: “My Family’s Terror at the NJ Garden State Mall.” Also, Dean Obeidallah asks us to treat gun violence as a public health epidemic.

As a final reading link: an odd combination of civility in response to knee-jerk, lock-step fear of the slippery slope. Check out a strong voice for GUN ADVOCACY respond to being fired from Guns & Ammo magazine for suggesting that background checks are a good idea. Dick Metcalf was given welcome albeit tempered platform on The Outdoor Wire.

* Why does there always need to be an asterix or an addendum to posts about gun violence? As I started this post on Sunday night, there was a shooting on the edge of the Kean University campus in Union, NJ. Thankfully, the woman shot seems to be in good condition — at least physically.