FROM THE EDITOR-Navy Yard: More guns, more blood, more broken hearts – and another list
This week 12 more American men and women were gunned down in yet another burst of senseless gun violence in this country.
This time it visited the nation’s capital. The mass shooting at the Navy Yard on Monday also marks the second time in four years that mass casualties have been inflicted by a gunman at a U.S. military facility.
This violence is beyond senseless. It begs for a paradigm shift in how we as a nation address gun ownership, mental health, and security. To throw up our collective hands and dare say this problem is too big to solve is to cease to be the United States of America that I know and love. Is it really gone like the dead?
To not find a solution to this problem is to besmirch the memories of these victims. To turn our backs on their loved ones now is an act of cowardice, selfishness and treason.
How many more lists of the dead must we endure? The photos of someone’s child, someone’s mother, father, sister and brother, beaming out at us so often it seems that the names and pictures of mass shooting victims in this country are starting to run together.
You want your gun rights! But what about their rights? What about the rights of those little boys and girls in Connecticut to come home from second grade today? What about the Virginia Tech victims and their right to leave their college campus safely, alive, or those killed in 2009 at Fort Hood, to show up for duty at the military base where they served protecting your rights every day?
What about their loved ones’ rights to not have to live the rest of their lives with giant, gaping holes in their hearts and souls? Dreams dashed of what could have been, what should have been, amid those cries of “God why me.”
How will our country’s wounds ever begin to heal if something real isn’t done today?
Another list? Will another list be the list of the dead that finally brings change? If not this latest list, will it be the next one?
How many more will it take?
How are these lists not enough?
Array
Michael Arnold, 59
Martin Bodrog, 54
Arthur Daniels, 51
Sylvia Frasier, 53
Kathleen Gaarde, 62
John R. Johnson, 73
Mary Francis DeLorenzo Knight, 51
Frank Kohler, 50
Vishnu Pandit, 61
Kenneth Proctor, 46
Gerald Read, 58
Richard Michael Ridgell, 52
Array
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Rachel D’Avino, 29
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Dylan Hockley, 6
Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47
Madeleine F. Hsu, 6
Catherine V. Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Nancy Lanza, 52
Jesse Lewis, 6
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Lauren Rousseau, 30
Mary Sherlach, 56
Victoria Soto, 27
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allison N. Wyatt, 6
Array
Alexander J. (“A.J.”) Boik, 18
Gordon Cowden, 51
Jessica Ghawi, 24
John Thomas Larimer, 27
Micayla Medek, 23
Matthew McQuinn, 27
Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6
Jonathan Blunk, 26
Jesse Childress, 29
Alexander Sullivan, 27
Alexander Teves, 24
Rebecca Wingo, 32
Array
L. Eduardo Caraveo, 52
Justin M. DeCrow, 32
John P. Gaffaney, 54
Frederick Greene, 29
Jason Dean Hunt, 22
Amy Krueger, 29
Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19
Michael Pearson, 22
Russell Seager, 41
Francheska Velez, 21
Juanita Warman, 55
Kham Xiong, 23
Array
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20
Christopher James “Jamie” Bishop, 35
Brian Bluhm, 25
Ryan Clark, 22
Austin Cloyd, 18
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
Kevin Granata, 46
Matthew G. Gwaltney, 24
Caitlin Hammaren, 19
Jeremy Herbstritt, 27
Rachael Elizabeth Hill, 18
Emily Hilscher, 19
Jarrett Lane, 22
Matthew J. La Porte, 20
Henry Lee
Liviu Librescu, 76
G.V. Loganathan, 51
Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34
Lauren McCain, 20
Daniel O’Neil, 22
Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26
Minal Panchal, 26
Daniel Perez Cueva, 21
Erin Peterson, 18
Mike Pohle, 23
Julia Pryde, 23
Mary Read, 19
Reema Samaha, 18
Waleed Shaalan, 32
Leslie Sherman, 20
Maxine Turner, 22
Nicole White, 20
