49 people were shot to death inside the gay nightclub ‘Pulse’ in Orlando, FL, in the morning hours of the 12th of June. 53 more were injured at the time of writing, by Omar Mateen, a 1st generation American citizen and a Muslim.
The incident brought several issues to the forefront of public consciousness, at least for a short while, during the beginning of the general election season between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The first issue is that it was a gay nightclub, and seems to have been targeted for that reason. The shooter was a Muslim and seems to have had homosexual tendencies himself via gay dating apps and a regularity at the very same nightclub he so confidently massacred, despite his heterosexual marriage and religious prohibition of homosexuality, and self-expressed views of homophobia. Into the mix then go political controversies over Islam and its radical elements, the LGBT community, and gun control.
As is customary upon the frequent occasion of publicized mass murder by shooting, every public figure and their grandmother issued teary condolences and heartfelt remarks. Liberal politicians used the occasion to call attention to their assorted versions of gun control legislation, though the gun was obtained legally, and the marginalization of LGBT groups, though the perpetrator was a member thereupon.
Conservative politicians, notably the orange muppet-in-chief Donald Trump (if conservatism can even be applied to his particular brand of politics) used it as proof that Muslims are dangerous and ought be kept out of ‘Murica.
The conservative politicians in the House of Representatives found their words quickly shown to be largely signifiers of their willingness to express empty sympathy, and not an actual change in belief or policy, as they blocked a bill by a slim margin which promised to bar federal contracts going to firms which discriminated on the basis of orientation or identity.
Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook moved to fill with angry folks yelling at people who agreed with them about how stupid the other side was. Liberals compared gun ownership to slavery. Conservatives made statements implying liberal immigration policies that allowed Mateen’s parents to move to America were the real salient cause of the shooting, and we ought to just keep all the brown people out of the country.
Perhaps this will change things. Though, given this sort of thing happens every few months, and nothing ever does change, I doubt it. If you want to have a bit more of a chance at impacting things, I might suggest directing your angry letters to your congressmen, and not your Facebook page.
From what I can tell, though my ground level view is considerably more liberal than the aggregate may be, Hillary Clinton is catching less flak in this instance for her views than Mr. Trump, and I suspect the issue of gun control and mass shootings will have a greater showing in their future bouts.
In truth, my main sensation at the whole thing is a numbness. If you study history, listening to the accounts of battles and conditions on the Western Front in WWI, of thousands of men being shot to pieces to no purpose over and over and over for years on end, you may find it horrific. But after the first few times, one grows accustomed and even bored of senseless violence. The same holds true of these shootings. I find myself asking a few short questions when I hear of a tragedy. How many died? Who was the killer? What can I expect to hear trumpeted in the next few weeks, and what jokes am I temporarily not allowed to make? Sympathy grows shorter and shorter. 'Maybe this time' I think to myself. 'Maybe this time.'
