Tag Archives: Las Vegas shooting

national news

‘I want gun control!’

I am going to stand with the mother of a young man who died this week at the hands of a gunman who opened fire at a Thousand Oaks, Calif., nightclub.

Susan Schmidt-Orafanos says she doesn’t want “thoughts and prayers. I want gun control!”

Then she said “no more guns!”

Her son, Telemachus, had survived the Las Vegas massacre a year ago. He didn’t survive the Thousand Oaks tragedy.

As the victim’s father noted, according to BBC: “It’s particularly ironic that after surviving the worst mass shooting in modern history, he went on to be killed in his hometown,” his father told the Ventura County Star.

Mrs. Orafanos’ plea for “no more guns” isn’t likely to gain much traction in the halls of Congress or perhaps in the state capital in Sacramento.

However, she spoke for many Americans who also have grown tired of expressions of “thoughts and prayers” from public officials, whose declarations are sounding more like platitudes in the wake of every such tragic event.

Does reasonable “gun control” mean dismembering or repealing the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment? Of course not! It means, for instance, that universal background checks of anyone seeking to purchase a gun can weed out those who might be predisposed to commit the kinds of acts that erupted in Thousand Oaks.

“Law-abiding” citizens need not worry about their “right to keep and bear Arms” being abridged in any form.

national news

Tragedy brings out the best in humankind

Americans have been talking a lot in the past two days about the worst of humanity.

Las Vegas has now become identified with the worst mass murder in “modern U.S. history”; I’m not sure how the media are defining “modern,” but the city once known exclusively for its glitz and glamor is now known also for something quite different.

Let it also be known as a city full of heroes. It is full of residents who, when the shots rained down Sunday night on the crowd at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, responded with valor and heroism.

I posted an item on this blog that sought to pay tribute to the first responders who answered the call. They included scores of off-duty police officers and firefighters who reacted the way they were trained to do. I failed in that post to mention the heroism displayed by individuals who formerly were known as “just plain folks.” No longer.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/10/stories-of-heroism-emerging-from-las-vegas/

The stories keep coming out of Las Vegas about the acts of those who shielded strangers from automatic rifle fire. Some of those heroes paid with their own lives while protecting the lives of others, whether they were loved ones or those they knew only for a moment or two before all hell broke loose.

We tend to center on the worst of humankind when events like this explode onto our consciousness. The monstrous gunman is dead; he took his own life at the moment police were closing in on him in his hotel room.

His reign of terror, though, managed to produce hundreds of heroes at whom he aimed his weapon.

We should pray for them and thank them for exhibiting the best in humankind while they were responding to the worst.

national news

Stories of heroism emerging from Las Vegas

Here they come. Less than 24 hours after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred, we’re hearing stories of heroism from those who just happened to be in the right place at well, the right time.

MSNBC reports today that a number of off-duty police officers happened to be in the crowd attending the country music performance at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Some of them were from Las Vegas and Clark County; others reportedly were California police officers who were visiting Las Vegas with their families.

How did they react when the gunman opened fire with his automatic weapon from the 32nd floor of the hotel/casino? What did they do? They reacted as they were trained to react. They sprung into action, shielding other event attendees from the gunfire; they worked to get potential victims off the floor and out of the way; they administered first aid; they talked to each other and to victims, lending aid and comfort.

What’s more, the first responders who were on duty — the firefighters, medical personnel and law enforcement officials — rushed toward the gunfire to do the jobs they were trained to do.

Is there a glimmer of a silver lining to be gleaned by these reports? Yes, certainly. Our hearts still are broken for the victims of the shooting. In this time of national grief, however, it also might be a tiny bit therapeutic to think of the heroes who answered the call.

Let us prepare ourselves for many stories in the future that will remind us of the heroes who suit up every single day to protect and serve the public.