By Roger Straw, July 9, 2022 

So the nation was shocked – again – on the 4th of July, and the Benicia-sized community of Highland Park is entering into the echoing chamber of lifelong grieving.

The loss is unimaginable…until it’s real.

And that loss, heaped unbearably onto 8 families in Highland Park, 8 of the 11,700 households, is decidedly real.  But it’s not just those 8.  Horrors and a broken sense of security now haunt the extended families of those 8, and the families of friends, co-workers, classmates, neighbors and acquaintances…  Highland Park is a lakeside community of 30,000 – now at sea.

The Gun Violence Archive notes that on that same day, July 4, there were five other mass shootings in the US, with 22 others injured and 2 more dead.

In just the first eight days of July, there have been 29 mass shootings in the US, killing 25 and injuring 151.  Divide those numbers by eight days: we’ve had 3.6 mass shootings every day, over 3 killed and nearly 20 injured, EVERY DAY IN THE USA so far in July!

But it takes school children or a parade to make  our news.

So yes, it seems I’m obsessed with the numbers.  But no, I’m obsessed with the pain and the horror and the imbecilic wanton disregard of those who hide behind the 2nd Amendment while the nation falls to pieces.

What will it take, before we follow the wisdom of Australia, Japan, and others?

We need guns off the streets, out of our homes, away from the hands not only of the mentally ill and violently prone, but away from us all.  There should be no right to bear 21st century arms in a peace-loving society.  What will it take, to tear down the lie that our nation’s founders would stand by while citizens gun each other down for no good reason?  What will it take to recognize that a well-armed militia of muskets just simply has nothing whatsoever to do with an AK-47 in the homes and hands of you and me?

God Almighty.  What will it take?

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Click here for Roger’s excel file downloaded initially from Gun Violence Archive, but with additional tabs noting mass shootings in:

• • In July so far…
  • Since Highland Park
  • 1 or more killed
  • In July, 1 or more killed
  • California