Orlando

There are 49* dead in Orlando today, along with 53 more injured. They were killed by a man named Omar Mateen, an American Muslim who pledged his allegiance to ISIS in a call to 911 before the massacre.  It's the worst mass shooting in history; the air is thick with grief and a general despondency that yet again dozens of families will have to bury people they loved because of some asshole with a gun. And then, somewhere in the back of our heads, a little prayer to whatever could be listening: "Please, don't let the next one be this bad."

We all know what's going to happen in the weeks and months ahead; liberals will advocate for gun control measures, conservatives will rail about Islam being a death cult hell-bent on destroying America, all the political factions will scramble to plant their flags and make the most principled stands they can on the backs of the dead. There will mentions of this atrocity all the way to November, I doubt there will be any debate where this doesn't get brought up as justification for Drumpf's Muslim immigration ban (that Mateen is an American citizen will I imagine be tossed into whatever pit inconvenient facts go into when they don't serve a political narrative.)

And then, once all the political juice has been wrung from their corpses, we will all move on.  It isn't out of callousness, it's just that, well, we only have so much anger and outrage and remorse to give out over these things. We have to conserve what we have because we never how much we're going to need for the next one. And there will be a next one. Because for all the brinkmanship, for all the bluster, for all the self-serving espousing about what our core values are as a country, nothing will change. Whatever his reasons for the attack, there was nothing stopping Mateen from gathering the tools to carry it out. There's no need for homicidal assholes to turn to the black market when the legal one poses no obstacle to amassing your own personal murder arsenal. So since that part of the equation isn't going to change anytime soon, then, well, at least all those prayers and condolences people send out won't get dusty or go unused anytime soon.

In the immediate aftermath, blood banks are asking for and receiving a massive influx of donations to cover the transfusion needs of the surviving victims; charities and crowdfunding pages have also been set up to cover their medical expenses.  All this is honorable,  it speaks to a basic human decency to help those who have gone through such a horrific event.  But I worry that setting up infrastructures for crisis management in the wake of a mass shootings, if there is a concentrated and committed list of actions after these things happen, speaks to a spirit of resignation and defeat, that the only real hope for change is how we well we can mop up the carnage that's left in the wake.  All of these shootings and massacres should hurt, they should make us question who are we as a people that we decide to live like this and it shouldn't get easier to cope with as time goes on.  It should always be a fresh hell that we have to walk through, no matter how many times we go through it.  But if we change that, if we give ourselves a way to cope and box up the shock and the grief in a clean and orderly fashion the same way we clear away the viscera and the shell casings, than the dead will matter less and less until they no longer matter at all.  And if that happens, we'll know we can stop trying, because there won't be anything left of us worth saving.

*Edit: The 50 dead figure originally in the post included Mateen, the figure's been updated to only reflect the victims.


RT