Hi darlins.
Turns out it's really hard to focus on writing a generally low-angst love fest when I'm anxious up to my neck about mass shooters. My husband works, and kiddo goes to daycare, less than a mile from where the King Soopers grocery store shooting happened yesterday. My husband got lunch at the sandwich shop right next to it an hour before the shooting began. My child's daycare was put on lock down, which partially--phew, they're taking this seriously, and partially--god damn it, I hate that they have to do that.
I shop in that store. My husband shops in that store. We've taken our child into that store. Ten people were killed in that store, including a police officer. This is the closest in a long time my family has come to this sort of horrendous violence, and it's knocked me for a fucking loop.
Our kiddo came home with her daddy last night and was fine. Of course she was fine--she's three, she had no idea what was going on around her or what a lock down is, because her caregivers are wonderful and competent people. I wonder how long that blissful ignorance, something that was a given in my childhood, will last. I was in high school right here in Boulder when the Columbine school shooting happened. Since then, it feels like events like this have accelerated faster and faster. Colorado has had a lot of mass shootings in the past twenty years--hell, the high school five minutes from my house called SWAT last week because one of the teachers thought she heard a shot. Did she? Probably not, but no one blinked an eye or told her she was being overly cautious for reporting it. No, SWAT showed up, as well they should have.
In this case, the shooter was apprehended alive. He was able to walk out of the store in police custody, after killing ten people. He's a white man, which will surprise no one at all. He's reported to have used an AR-15 style rifle. He's alive, and ten people are dead, and the what-ifs could drive you mad. One thing is for sure--I support gun control laws, and I'm going to support them and the politicians who back them even harder now, because watching literal traitors to our country like Congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweet out false sympathy after taking pictures and posting videos with a literal wall of guns in the background makes me fucking sick.
Anyway, sorry darlins, but this is going to be something of a mental health day for me. I'll have more knacks and exciting battles for you next week, and maybe an excerpt of the Luckless sequel (Dauntless, for those who're interested) up on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment