What is there to say at this point? About guns, fear, homophobia, and Islamophobia? It feels hopeless, I feel helpless—and it didn’t even happen to me, except in the way that it happened to everyone. The realization is sinking in that we live in a country, right now, where there’s nothing stopping anyone from committing a mass shooting, except for whether or not they want to commit a mass shooting.
Freedom will always involve sacrifice, but the freedom to own semi-automatic guns, to purchase nearly every kind of gun indiscriminately, at the cost of a death toll that grows higher every single day seems like a bad deal. I mean, how high do we let that horrifying odometer spin before we realize that this isn’t a partisan issue? It’s an American issue, and our present policy of shrugging, sobbing, and lamenting online isn’t enough. Of course, all I’m doing right now is lamenting how all we do is lament—so I’m a hypocrite, too. Nothing I can write here, or anywhere really, can do anything about gun policy.
Instead, let me throw my voice in with the chorus of people celebrating the group that was targeted by this particular mass shooting, the LGBTQ community.
My older sister is gay. She’s also seven years older than me, which means when I was in my late teens, she had perfected getting hammered and throwing parties. House parties. The most fun fucking house parties I’ve ever attended, too.