This week, a man pulled a gun on a packed theater in Louisiana, firing off a 10-round clip, killing two people and injuring nine others before turning the gun on himself.
I live more than 1,400 miles from Lafayette, Louisiana. But every time I learn of another mass shooting, I feel sucker-punched. It's like a swift blow to my gut after years that should have built a more sturdy defense.
On a perfect spring evening in 1999, I was on a date with an old friend, Philip, a kinda-maybe boyfriend -- we were figuring that out. It was an exciting night and the air was filled with possibility and the scent of new blossoms.
After a lovely dinner, we headed to an art party in an old warehouse building in Atlanta. On our way there, Philip turned back to lock his jeep while I waited a few yards away. Suddenly, I heard what I thought was the sound of a firecracker, and then Philip shouting something unintelligible.
Though I couldn’t make out what he wanted to say, I knew it was a warning. I knew I had to run. I took off in the dark as bullets flew past me, trying to dive under a truck. And then heard the footsteps. There was no doubt -- someone had been shooting at us, and I quickly calculated I should play dead. If I was dead, there would be no reason for someone to shoot at me again.
Then I felt the gun on my head. The shooter knew I wasn’t dead, and I knew that he knew. He took my purse. The gun on the center of my forehead was heavy and cold. Clenching my fists, I opened my eyes. I needed to see the face of whomever it was who was going to kill me. But he fired his gun into the air, and ran away.
It turned out that I'd been hit, a bullet had grazed my upper back, and Philip -- a beloved high school teacher who worked with at-risk youth and often stayed after school to help kids prepare for their tests -- was dead, killed just four days after the Columbine shooting which we had talked a lot about during dinner because Philip was concerned about the well-being of his own students.
There have been 34 shootings this month alone, according to Gun Violence Archive, which collects data on gun related violence.
On July 16, a man killed four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tennessee before being killed in a shoot-out with law enforcement. But we barely had time to digest the news, or wonder the details of how the Chattanooga shooter obtained his gun, before being confronted with the movie theater shooting in Louisiana.
And this last shooting in Louisiana comes on the heels of the trial of the last theater shooting in Aurora. I feel terrible for my friends who lost a child in that shooting. Their PTSD must be raging right now. I wonder if this new group of survivors in Lafayette will reach out to survivors of Aurora. I hope they can find some peace now that they must endure this sudden and senseless loss. And rather than refer to them as 'victims', let's talk about 'survivors.'
I started working as an activist to prevent gun violence in December 2012 after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in which a 20-year-old man shot and killed 20 children and six adult staff. I felt I could no longer sit idly by as this epidemic ravaged my country -- especially after my own experience more than a decade earlier. My PTSD-fueled visions were turning into nightmares of guns pointing at my own children’s heads. And that’s when I knew I had to do something.
What makes my job so damn hard -- aside from the powerful and greedy gun lobby -- is that I'm caught in what seems a never-ending cycle of gun-related violence, and it seems I can’t do it. I am caught in a perpetual state of drop-everything-and-rapidly-respond to another shooting.
My typical response, like many I know, is to feel a rush of anger at yet another shooting. Our legislators need to recognize that our system is bleeding -- quite literally shot to hell.
As many as 91 percent of Americans support expanded background checks to help keep guns out of dangerous hands. With that kind of majority, our elected officials have a responsibility to actually do something about it -- to not only offer prayer as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal did but to pass effective legislation.
But this time, I am not angry. And that scares me. This time I feel helpless and I want to run away. Maybe it’s because I’m hosting a friend from New Zealand where they don't have the epidemic of gun-related violence like we have here.
It has made me think about moving, about leaving the country.
Imagine what life would be like not having to worry whenever I take my kids to see a movie or send them off to school.
Imagine life without gun violence.