Officer a scene of shooting at Rite Aid in Aberdeen, Maryland. (Jose Luis Magana, Associated Press)
Over a 24 hour span, there have been three workplace shootings: one at Rite Aid in Aberdeen, Maryland, one at a software company in Middleton, Wisconsin, and a municipal building in Masontown, Pennsylvania.
Aberdeen Rite Aid:
A 26-year-old woman open fired at a Rite Aid in Aberdeen, Maryland. The woman, Snochia Moseley, killed herself after, leaving four dead (three co-workers and the shooter) and several wounded. Moseley was a temporary Rite Aid employee, and, according to CBS, “got into an argument at work Thursday morning and began shooting colleagues.” However, authorities don’t have a motive yet. The gun used in the shooting was a 9 mm Glock handgun, which was registered to Moseley.
Middleton:
A 43-year-old employee open fired on his co-workers at WTS Paradigm (a software company). Four were wounded and three are in serious condition. Police shot and killed the man at the scene, but have not yet released his name. The man, who had worked for WTS for about a year and a half, was armed with a semi-automatic pistol and extra ammunition.
Masontown:
A man open fired and shot four people outside a judge’s office in the lobby of Masontown Borough Municipal Center. The shooter, Patrick Dowdell, 61, was shot and killed by police on the scene. All four victims were taken to local hospitals and are in non-life threatening condition.
Dowdell was scheduled for a hearing on domestic violence the same day (Wednesday), but neither the judge nor any of the judge’s staff members were targeted.
An anecdote + my thoughts:
When trying to decide on a blog post, my mom said, “There was another shooting. How about that?” I went to go do some research and, much to my dismay, I couldn’t figure out which shooting she was talking about. That made me pause. It’s horrific, really. While each of these cases alone is awful, the fact that they all occurred within 24 hours is unbelievable. Shootings becoming a common thing. The fact that we say “another shooting” is disheartening.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/masontown-shooting-judges-office.html
4 comments:
According to Vox, there is on average one mass shooting for every day of the year. Rather than saying "another shooting," I feel like we probably overlook most of the mass shootings in general, as there are just too many to keep track of. There has already been 262 mass shootings this year as of September 20, and there will probably be another 100 before the end of the year. There are too many guns in the US, and the laws to restrict gun usage are too few at the federal level.
Recently, there was a viral video of a man who was shot and killed because of a small dispute with a neighbor in Texas. Although this incident was not a mass shooting, it really shows the absurdity of the availability of guns and the reckless behavior of some gun owners who shouldn't be allowed to own guns.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/20/17882888/mass-shootings-us-aberdeen-maryland
https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2018/09/21/you-pulled-gun-front-my-kids-over-mattress-man-said-then-he-was-shot-dead/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4af8f8436128
With increasing media coverage on gun shootings, it's rather inevitable -- and sad -- that we become desensitized to additional coverage. I can only hope that people will continue to fight for stricter gun control laws and continue to investigate solutions to gun violence despite shootings slowly evolving to another "daily happening." What's even more disheartening is the fact that, because the National Rifles Association is such a powerful lobbyist association (with funds that far exceed that of gun control lobbyists), it has a lot more leverage in pushing its anti-gun control agenda. Any Republican candidate hoping to fare well in an upcoming election is incentivized to oppose any form of gun control in the hopes of collecting NRA funding/ votes. In 2017, for example, the NRA, according to the Guardian, spent 4.1 million dollars on lobbying.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/17/nra-gun-lobby-gun-control-congress
https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-power-lobbying-statistics-gun-control-2017-10#there-are-also-significant-differences-in-how-nra-members-and-non-nra-members-view-the-same-gun-control-policy-proposals-even-among-republican-gun-owners-5
As above commenters have stated, Americans need to continue to take a hard look at gun laws in this country. The widespread presence of guns that is questionable at best and outright dangerous at worst is not a trend that Americans should look to continue.
With these cases, there's another facet of the story that I'm curious about: the motives. All three of the assailants in this story are dead, but through investigation, I hope we can identify, or at least come close to identifying, why they acted in such a violent manner. Nothing can be done overnight, but if we can start to gather a reason why people commit shootings or signs that people may be on the verge of committing a shooting, more can be done to try to limit them. I don't think gun control would be a perfect solution to the problem, as many shootings, including one from this story, are done with legal guns, but identifying signs of danger, as with any potentially harmful situation, would help significantly.
For what it's worth, even the Onion, a satirical website, has made a statement on the prevalence of mass shootings by printing the same story with just names and locations replaced after various shootings. Here are a few:
Isla Vista
Roseburg
Las Vegas
Parkland
Santa Fe
Bakersfield
I agree that this is extremely disheartening and heartbreaking, and it is becoming more obvious to me that gun control is needed. But for most of America, each shooting becomes less and less important, to the point where either the media can't keep up or it's not deemed "newsworthy" enough.
In the end, the way in which these shootings are addressed (or not addressed) goes back to polarization. A while ago, I had a conversation with my grandpa about this, as I was talking to him about how I had helped organize the San Mateo March for Our Lives and the bills our activist coalition was writing/ trying to get passed.
Both of us were defensive. He's an avid hunter, NRA member, and Fox News enthusiast. I kept repeating how important it was to keep guns out of the hands of certain people, and he kept repeating that all Hillary had wanted to do / Democrats want to do is "take my guns away."
We talked for a long time. And after we stopped arguing, we actually realized that we basically agreed on the basics. We both thought hunters should be able to keep their guns, that mentally ill people and felons should not have access to guns, that the NRA should not be able to essentially buy out politicians, etc.
It's unfortunate but this is the reality of politics today. No one likes school shootings, nor do they want them to happen. But our country has become so polarized that the only two options when it comes to gun control seem to be "take everyone's gun away" or "everyone gets guns," which is not actually what most people think. And neither of those "options" are either viable solutions.
I'm not saying talking's the answer. But awareness on the amount of shootings happening, voter registration (more importantly, informing voters) and compromise could definitely help.
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