Yet another gruesome mass murder
July 4th, 2022. Highland Park, Illinois. Seven victims now dead, 39 hospitalized with wounds from his assault weapon. Innocent citizens attending their annual July 4th parade.
I have the depressing feeling that nothing will change. Who and where will be next? I'd say it's a safe bet we won't have to wait long to find out.
Real piece of work, this 21 yr old. Reports are that he bought his weapons and ammo legally.
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| Robert E. "Bobby" Crimo III |
...In the first few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, I traveled to London and New York. That’s when I realized that the terrorists had succeeded in making an ordinary citizen—me—think about terrorism constantly. I wondered, on my first trips back to those cities and during almost every visit to any metropolis for a few more years: Am I here on the wrong day? Is this the site of the next attack? The terrorists had, for a time, taken away my complacency and my ability to enjoy a simple stroll in a big city. Americans now have to feel this way all the time, in their own country, at almost any mass gathering, in even the quiet towns and suburbs that people once thought of as relatively immune to such terrifying events.
Such feelings are corrosive and depressing. They undermine our faith in our system of government. (This is often the goal of terrorist violence.) Worse, mass shootings undermine our faith in one another. And that loss of faith leads me to a thought I cannot escape: There is nothing we can do about such events. They will keep happening.
This is not because I am a pessimist. Despite my sometimes-grumpy views on any number of things, I think most people are good and that engaged citizens can find workable solutions to most things. But when it comes to this particular kind of violence—a lone shooter attacking a community with a powerful weapon—all of the foundations for another disaster are already in place. A bizarre gun culture created the demand for millions of guns; an extremist lobby has attacked almost every measure to place any restrictions on those guns. (And the Supreme Court seems determined to roll back any limits on the ability of states to control access to these weapons.)...
AND, FROM THE U.S. DUHPARTMENT OF DROOL
SUSPECT'S CONFESSION
News reports have it that Crimo promptly confessed, and further added that he'd considered also shooting up a July 4th gathering in Madison WI, where he'd fled after his Highland Park mass murder spree.
JULY 4TH, 2022 ERRATUM
On Sunday I took my wife, son, daughter-in-law, and young grandson Calvin to the Orioles game at Camden Yards. We had a great time, and arrived home thereafter safely and unremarkably.
On Sunday, Irina and Kevin McCarthy took their only child, 2 yr old Aiden, to the July 4th parade in their town of Highland Park, IL.
Aiden is now an orphan.
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