The day was beautiful yesterday, crisp and cool and lovely. Don got home a little after 12 noon and we went out for lunch, mowed the lawn, sat in the sun, did some laundry and then it was suddenly 7:30 this morning and I was driving him to the bus station.
Too soon. You’d think we’d be used to that by now but we aren’t. Sigh.
I woke up this morning to the horrific news from Las Vegas. I have no words but to say my prayers go to all who were involved in the incident, to those who are injured, to those who lost their lives and to their families, to the first responders. When will it end?
I’ll wish you a Happy Monday anyway.
Peace.
shanna says
Yes. And how can madness be our new normal in this country? When will we wake up?
Sorry. No answers, only questions today.
Claudia says
Only questions here, as well.
Linda @ A La Carte says
Another horrible headline! I just can’t get my mind around how things like this continue to happen in our country. So full of sadness this morning. Praying for so many who have been killed and wounded.
Claudia says
I can’t comprehend it either, Linda.
Chris K in Wisconsin says
Tragic. I don’t even know what “normal” means any longer. How do we continue to comprehend and process all of this madness? It just won’t end. What can we do? What should we do? Praying sounds nice, but that can’t be the only answer.
Claudia says
Gun control, for starters.
kathy says
agree with the need for more gun control … and lawmakers who support the constitution and all the freedoms it contains, but also understand how different the world and weapons are now compared to when that document was written … and who will vote not by party or for what they think will get them re-elected, but for what will truly, finally make this country and world better, safer…!
prayers for all involved – the people who were senselessly killed or injured, their loved ones, first responders … and the world.
kathy in iowa
Claudia says
The second amendment was for muskets. Not what we have today, right? We need to amend things to match the world we have today.
kathy says
right!
kathy in iowa
Claudia says
xo
Vicki says
Yes, what I could glean from those early news reports is that this terrorist (yeah, he was an old white guy but he’s still a terrorist; sorry for my frank words, but not every terrorist fits a certain ‘description’) had an arsenal of guns that are war-type/battle-type guns. I know nothing of guns but the shooting scene was being described as a war zone so, yes, because the madman was using those kinds of weapons that would only be on a battlefield with soldiers in a war. We’ve all now heard on the videos, his rapid fire and that tat-a-tat-tat of repetitive bullets. It’s complete insanity that these weapons exist in a civilized society.
My paternal ancestors were credited with craftsmanship of an early long-rifle but that was the late 1700s here in America when people were settlers and needed to shoot game to eat and of course protect themselves on the frontier for a variety of reasons because, if you want to look at it in one way, they were invaders in new territories where other people (Native Americans) already lived. I suppose gun advocates of today will use the same argument, or at least part of it, about feeling a need to protect themselves in a wild world. But every gun can kill, no matter what kind. And naive-me asks, where is the guy next door getting a ‘civilian version’ of a machine gun? Do I have to look at my neighbor three doors down and wonder to myself if he has a machine gun in the house?
I swear, has my world ever seemed more apocalyptic?
Claudia says
I’ve been calling it an act of domestic terrorism on social media today. I agree – he is a terrorist. No one needs a gun like that. No one.
Chris says
C: How ironic to hear Rump call for unity. Trump has been uniquely quiet about the killer. Due to that fact, I knew the killer was white before I saw his picture. “SAD!” – to quote the horror in chief. C
Claudia says
Yep. If he had been Muslim, Trump would have been on a tweet rampage.
Vanessa says
Madness Indeed !!!
How in the hell did this nut case have the ability to buy an automatic weapon and a cache of bullets? (And don’t even get me started on why people NEEDguns to go hunting.) I can’t be convinced that this guy didn’t have mental health issues.
I propose , if an individual wants to purchase a weapon, that they be subject to mental health screening and their mental health records be examined, then a determination be made by a mental health professional. The processes we currently have in place are not working.
Sorry NRA, Second Ammendment supporters, mental health and HIPPA advocates but this madness has to stop. Try explaining to the families, friends and relatives of the murdered and injured that this person has the RIGHT to buy a weapon and then use it on innocent people who also had the RIGHT to live.
I’m fed up with the madness.
Claudia says
Absolutely. There should be a mental health screening. And I’ve had it with the NRA – they have become a militant group of crazies. I’ve seen a few of their videos lately and, seriously, they threaten those who want to stop them.
Vicki says
My husband just called me to say that two people he works with were at the concert and were able to run; they are physically uninjured. They were splattered in blood…but it wasn’t their blood. That’s how bad the carnage was. Brittany looked down at her shoes and just threw them away. They are of course completely traumatized but at least can talk about it, so maybe that’s helping them after having been a part of something that no person should ever have to be.
I’m married to a guy who is really even-tempered, big on common-sense, calm; but I could hear it in his voice just now…he’s feeling shaken. When you can personalize a traumatic event and match it face to name, it brings the horror even closer. These two people from his workplace had only made the trip over to Vegas from SoCalif to be at this concert. I don’t remember reading anything about such a concert even taking place there, but I guess it was a big draw. My husband, who’s also an emergency response volunteer, said, “I can’t even imagine what it was for those first responders to arrive on that scene.” I had seen in the earlier news coverage that they were even fashioning barricades as stretchers for the wounded.
I still can’t wrap my head around so many people being murdered at one time, in mere minutes. We read of plane crashes; maybe a train accident. God forbid, a building inferno. But for people just enjoying a Sunday of music…it’s just incomprehensible.
Claudia says
I can’t even begin to imagine what they were going through. You right – it is incomprehensible.
Vicki says
I was watching a news segment where one of the LV hospital physicians was being interviewed by phone and he concurred as a seasoned ER/OR doctor that he’d never seen anything like what their hospital had been through in the previous 15 or 16 hours and that one of his co-physicians had been a doctor in the field in I believe the war in Iraq, equating the incoming dead and wounded at the Las Vegas hospital as no different; a war zone.
Claudia says
Unbelievable. Horrific.
Wendy T says
I just read a news story on the Vegas slaughter. That the killer apparently had no previous dealings with law enforcement, did not exhibit any odd behavior to family and friends, and was able to check into a major hotel with that much firepower are so troubling and worrisome. There seems to be so few safe harbors these days. This coming weekend, there will be a major three-day music festival in San Francisco. I hope that goes smoothly, but I’m sure the organizers are looking very closely into the Las Vegas incident and possibly preparing to increase security. Thank you for the wish of a Happy Monday. I feel strongly that we have to make our own happy; amidst the horrible and horrendous, our own happy helps keep us sane. I wish you a Happy Monday, too, Claudia.
Claudia says
Our own happy seems to be all we’ve got lately. Take care, Wendy.
Donnamae says
Yes…it is insane madness! So many questions have yet to be answered…so many people affected by this insanity. Why does one man need so many guns in the first place? (Not to mention, how did he get them into his room?) The second amendment needs to be seriously re-examined in my opinion. We need more controls, not fewer. Background checks, including mental health checks for starters. And, don’t get me started on the availability of automatic weapons! When will people wake up? How many more of us have to die?
Claudia says
Donnamae, I completely agree.
Would you do me a favor and tell me if this reply gets to your email? I’m trying to replace my comment reply plugin with another one that works better.
Donnamae says
Yes…I got your reply in an email! Nice when things work like they are supposed to! ;)
Claudia says
The problem with plugins is that the developers sometimes stop updating them and then at some point, whether it’s because of a WP update or an operating system update, they stop working correctly. That has happened to me twice today!
Vicki says
When I left my first comment some minutes ago, the Leave a Reply section didn’t have my default name and email address. I had to renter the info.
Claudia says
That’s because I changed the plugin today. The other one wasn’t working properly. You may have to add your info for a while, I’m not sure.
Vicki says
It’s no problem.
Claudia says
xo
Donnamae says
I see my comment duplicated….I was having trouble with the button…sorry! ;)
Claudia says
The plugin is acting up with the newest update. I have to find something to replace it. So if you get a message saying duplicate comment it means your comment went through.
Suzan Stoddard says
Our city is stunned. The cars of folks trying to donate blood are lining every street and neighborhood at every location. The only hope I am clinging to. The fact that the orange menace is coming on Wednesday fills me with rage. What stupidity will spew forth this time?
Claudia says
He shouldn’t show his face. Oh my heavens.
Vicki says
I wish I didn’t feel so bitter, but it crossed my mind that if I was one of the wounded and he visited the hospital, I’d tell his entourage to move on to the next room because his presence would only make me feel worse.
Claudia says
I think I would be saying much the same thing.
Vicki says
I feel like I can’t speak, like in utter words; it’s a numbness. I confess to staying up late last night, long after my husband had gone on to bed. I was watching a movie I’d recorded. When it ended and I was fooling with the remote, the screen reverted to ‘regular programming’ and it was this instant dread that something terrible had happened and it seemed to be still unfolding, breaking headlines on every local news and national news TV channels even though it was midnight. It was so startling; like, what in the world has happened? I found myself just getting into a fetal position on the sofa which is where I then lay for the next three hours in a half-sleep til my husband came into the room and said, “Something awful has happened.” He has trouble with sleep and had been briefly awake; looked at his phone. So we watched some of the TV at 4am and then tried to get back to sleep, and he was consequently an hour late for work. I canceled an appointment today and feel like I don’t want to go anywhere…I just want to be quiet…but I’m not turning on the TV yet and I barely scanned the web headlines.
I can’t quite recall, other than 1968 as I’d touched on another time, when so many horrific events keep happening one on top of another. What’s going on in our government; Korea; the hurricanes and now another shooting…you are right, Claudia; we are living in madness. Guns; too many bad people with access to guns. If they just didn’t have guns…
And now rocker Tom Petty has been taken off life support and is said to have no brain activity after a cardiac arrest.
Right now, I’m going to go try to find some sanity in the mayhem and retrieve some new dolls I bought for a little girl’s birthday tomorrow ; I’m going to wrap them extra-pretty; I need beautiful right now. And I just hope and pray that her future world (she’s only age 10) can somehow be safer for her than it seems right now. It brings up again how any of us can be safe in a contained or enclosed space with multiple people, be it a theater, an arena, a shopping mall, a school…but we have to press on and somehow figure out what to do and how to live among mad men. My husband works at a place with thousands of people onsite; he lives with the threat at work and they consistently have disaster drills, like in how to barricade themselves and how to save themselves in the presence of a shooter, again having to go about daily life but with an always-present wariness/vigilance which clearly is wearing us all out.
But, right now, all any of us can do is pray and transmit our most healing and heartfelt sympathy to the people in Las Vegas who are frightened, wounded, who have lost people they love and are hurting in every way, shape or form. And of course the murderer was a coward; they always are…
Claudia says
I don’t think 1968 could compare to this year. It’s been tragic on so many levels. And it just keeps coming.
Vicki says
Yes, it seems like we’re living in the worst year of our lives.
Claudia says
xo
Marilyn says
Prayers for all involved in the Las Vegas shooting.
Marilyn
Claudia says
Yes. Prayers.
Nancy Blue Moon says
I too agree with you on gun control Claudia…but I will tell you truthfully that if I were to stand up and proclaim my feelings here in the middle of hunting country…I would fear for my life also…Some of these hunters get violently angry if you just try to discuss it with them…they are NRA till death!…. “Guns don’t kill people,they say, people kill people” …to which I would answer…”Yes, people with guns ” Here in the land of the mighty deer hunter…men are off work for the first day of deer season…schools are closed for the first day of deer season….many of them put a gun into the hands of their children at a very young age and teach them to kill….and people wonder why we have a problem with guns?…I fear that more and more people will end up like my son…locked away in their home for fear of what might happen outside….Peace & Love to all…🌸
kathy says
to nancy blue moon …
i am sorry you have to deal with that. i hope you and your son stay safe (and true to yourselves)!
kathy in iowa
Nancy Blue Moon says
Thank you Kathy…it is scary to see people all around you carrying guns…who can say if one of them might go off and start shooting…it seems to happen every day somewhere!
Claudia says
We have the hunter mentality here, as well. I dread hunting season every year. Sending love to you and your son, my friend.
Nancy Blue Moon says
I know that it must break your heart to see them toting their dead deer around to show off like prize trophies…Our local newspaper takes their picture with the deer they killed and puts it in the paper for free…adults and children who look so proud of what they have done…I wonder what this really does to children inside…
Claudia says
I hate it. I hate hearing the sound of gunshots in the distance. It makes me ill.
Vicki says
We had a neighbor across the street when I was growing up who had a family tradition of an annual deer hunt. One of the few really upsetting memories of my childhood (thankfully, I have many more wonderful ones than bad) is when that guy came home from one of those trips, stood up in the back of his pickup truck and held up this bloody, dripping deer head. I ran screaming in horror and I’ll never forget that gruesome sight for as long as I still live.
Claudia says
It’s simply barbaric. I do not respect hunters, especially in this day and age where it absolutely is not necessary.