Last Wednesday’s mass shooting at a medical facility in Atlanta took the life of one woman and sent four others to surgery for varying degrees of gunshot wounds, some life-threatening. It happened in the same Midtown building, on the same floor and in the same office that my wife worked at for nearly six years. It’s the same office I also visited many times for appointments with my own doctor.
I’m not suggesting an attention-seeking “that could’ve been me” scenario because it couldn’t. I was 70-plus miles away in Eatonton with no doctor visits coming up, and thankfully, my wife moved on in her career years ago, so she was in no danger either.
Still, it was strange to think we’ve both ridden the same elevator as the alleged killer, walked down the same hall, pushed open the same door he entered through, stepped up to the same counter, and maybe even sat in the same chair as one of his victims. We, and my wife far more than I, know that room’s layout, though it really could be just about any doctor’s waiting area.
And actually, it’s not strange, that’s the wrong word. It’s more a matter of disturbing that something so terrible could happen, did happen, in such a mundane, familiar setting. Like it always does. It shatters the assumption of safety and security that most of us enjoy the luxury of in our day-to-day goings on. There’s little question that CDC worker Amy St. Pierre, a 38-year-old wife and mother of two, fully expected to visit her doctor and leave Laureate Medical Group uneventfully that day, just as she no doubt had done before.
Instead, she died at the end of a lunatic’s gun, reportedly because the alleged shooter snapped after arriving late for an appointment and being told he’d have to reschedule.
It’s ridiculous to think that you, or me, or your neighbor, your barber, your boss or someone you dearly love, remains vulnerable to such a stupid, trivial setback for a man with a handgun in his pocket. But sadly, and it’s very scary to even consider, the mass shooting threat really feels like it’s climbing the likelihood ladder for each of us in this country. According to the Gun Violence Archive (gunviolencearchive.org), there have already been more than 200 mass shootings (defined as four victims injured or killed in one incident) in America this year. There haven’t even been 150 days yet, so we’re averaging well over one a day. Seriously, is that acceptable to anyone?
Anyone?
I know I’m nowhere near the first, nor anywhere close to the last, to suggest it’s well past time for sensible gun control. And please, don’t trot out the tired trope about “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I have to ask, where are all these good guys?
There never ever seems to be one around when it matters. And even if there were, does anyone really want to be around for the crossfire between amateurs in a stress-induced gunfight that hours on the range undoubtedly have not prepared them for? Ridiculous.
Seriously, the only good guys with guns that did anything on May 3rd were the Atlanta police officers who tracked down the alleged Midtown shooter a few hours later, capturing him as he crawled on the grass outside an apartment complex near the Braves stadium.
But, do I think new gun restrictions are going to happen? No. Not a chance. Certainly not in this state.
Just one year ago, Gov. Brian Kemp signed off on a law that allows any “lawful weapons carrier” – defined as anyone eligible to buy a firearm – to carry a concealed handgun without requiring a state license, wherever firearms are permitted.
Now, a sign was posted at the Laureate offices declaring that guns are not permitted, so add that to the laws broken, I suppose. It’s just ironic, I think, that we now live in an era with far more lax gun laws than the pre-Civil War South and even the so-called “Wild West” of the 1880s. In those days, states and even individual towns dictated strict conditions on carrying guns, with few exceptions made beyond lawmen for having them on hand within city limits.
A 2018 Smithsonian Magazine article about 19th-century U.S. gun laws quotes UCLA School of Law professor and American constitutional law specialist Adam Winkler as saying, “People were allowed to own guns, and everyone did own guns [in the West], for the most part. Having a firearm to protect yourself in the lawless wilderness from wild animals, hostile native tribes, and outlaws was a wise idea. But when you came into town, you had to either check your guns if you were a visitor or keep your guns at home if you were a resident.”
I know we’ll never see that again, but what we do have just isn’t much help, that much is clear. The gun control issue should at least remain open to debate and hopefully, someday, improvement. I really don’t think we should have to feel nervous every time we just go about our everyday lives. Do you?