True Crime, Active Shooters and Gun Control.

The week of Christmas I was made redundant from my job, in the weeks that followed as I started studiously applying for jobs, I would reward myself each day with an hour of television. Long before I discovered Romance I was a self proclaimed lover of True Crime. I was known to devour books on serial killers and mass murderers, the psychology behind their decisions and reasons for "snapping" intrigued me, in all honesty it's why I chose electives at University like Abnormal Psychology.

There was one time years ago when flying that a stewardess asked me what I was so intently invested in that I didn't even notice that dinner service had begun. I was showed her my book, Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shachtman with it's dark cover and title it's no wonder she was surprised. The truth is the inner workings of a depraved mind has long instilled in me a sense of intrigue.

Fast forward back to mid January when I was searching the Australian paid television network Stan, I stumbled on a documentary series that caught my eye. Active Shooter: American Under Fire. Each episode focuses on a mass shooting in recent years, speaking with law enforcement and first responders from the day, family members of those who lost their lives, injured victims, and in some cases even family members of the perpetrator. It's a sombre look into the lives of those impacted in the most personal of ways by these crimes. It examines the procedures first responders follow and the changes that have been made since as local law makers and politicians try to come to terms with a growing death toll. It examines the lives of those left behind and the long lasting trauma left on the heroic first responders that ran in when most of us would want to run out.

 It almost seems surreal now, that weeks after watching this series in the comfort of my own home, a world away another tragedy is unfolding. A nineteen year old former student opened fire on unsuspecting students and teachers at a Parkland Florida High School killing seventeen. My first reaction was what, how, why.... now I'm sitting here wondering how much more it will take before law makers do something instead of trotting out the old adage "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

After Columbine we said we would learn, and here we are almost twenty years later with no change, no tighter gun control laws, and more active shooter situations then ever before. Semi automatic and automatic weapons have only one purpose and that’s to kill lots of people in the shortest amount of time possible. These are not weapons needed by farmers, hunters or recreational shooters. This isn’t about constitutional rights, this is about changing and tightening laws to make your people safer.

Before you say but the shooter clearly has mental health issues...I'm certainly no refuting that, there’s no doubt that the lack of mental health care and preventive measures have played a role in this, and no doubt the stigma attached to mental health has not helped, but tougher gun laws means that people can’t easily access weapons like this. Columbine, San Bernardino, Charlestown, Washington, Orlando, Oak Creek, Santa Monica, Las Vegas, Connecticut.... how many more people have to die before the American people say no more?

And before we get in to the disabling of Constitutional rights, any responsible gun owner will tell you the prime use of semi automatic and automatic weapons, more over they will also tell you there’s no need for them. The truly disturbing fact is in the days that follow we will rage against the system, we will scream how unjust and unfair this is. We’ll cry for those injured and murdered, and we’ll tell ourselves never again.... but before injured victims are even released from hospital, long before the shooter even stands trial we will forget. Parkland Florida will just be another location like Columbine Colorado, Santa Monica California, or Newtown Connecticut, like countless other places that saw death and destruction.

In the last few years of my retail career I'd attended copious rounds of active shooter training, what to do if an active shooter situation was to occur in the shopping centre I was working in...get your customers and your staff into your backroom, close the shutters, turn off the lights and barricade yourselves in with your mobile phones and anything nearby you could use as a weapon, get low and stay quiet. Did you know that the training for first responders since Columbine has changed time and time again as they try to find the best method to take down the shooter/s. Because in the time it takes to secure and clear the scene and find the shooter/s, injured people are bleeding out and dying. First responders are being trained to go against their primal instinct and usual training to stop and render aid and to secure the scene first. 

In the days and weeks that follow today I hope for a different outcome, I hope that the tears and outrage that will inevitably turn to thoughts and prayers, that will culminate in calls to action will change the trajectory of gun control for the American people. I hope that instead of the empty promises that politicians will surely trot out, we see a swelling of ground support that says we want preventative measures put in place instead of tears and platitudes in the aftermath. I hope we see a different America then the one we see today, where school shootings, and active shooters are not merely our new normal.