Well here we are again. Waking up to reports of a mass shooting. This time in Orlando. First twenty dead. Now fifty. We carefully allow those numbers to enter our brain. We compare them to Sandy Hook and San Bernadino. Neither of those were that high, right? We know that soon their faces will stare back at us from our laptops and televisions. Soon we'll compare their smiles and stories to our loved ones. But for now, we're allowed to box them into a simple, tragic double digit.
We watch the news report the same facts over and over again. The shooter's name is reported repeatedly because it's one of the few things they know. They try to keep us entertained until new information emerges. As if new facts will make any of this make sense. But they keep reporting and we keep waiting.
We read the horrifying headlines of stories posted by our Facebook friends. "Deadliest Shooting in US History" pops up again and again. Which we haven't seen since Sandy Hook. Or was it Virginia Tech? They're accompanied by vague statuses about "thoughts and prayers," "broken hearts," "when will this stop?" Although the sentiment is genuine, we've seen it and said it all before.
We scroll through Twitter. It's not even noon and the shooting is already politicized. Perhaps it should be. Regardless of which side of the gun debate we're on, there are tweets we identify with and tweets that enrage us. The terms assault weapon and terrorism get tossed around once again. We see politicians tip toeing around the issues. And others diving right in. There's so much passion surrounding this, we wonder if something might change this time. Just like we did last time.
We think how something needs to change. Whether it's improved mental health services or perhaps effective gun laws. We know our country is the world leader in mass shootings. We know other countries have much stricter gun laws and much fewer deaths. We know something's broken in our country. We want to see change.
And then we finish our morning coffee and start our day. It's a beautiful Sunday in June and we have kids and pets and gardens and barbeques. Orlando will surely come up with the people we run into. Everyone will agree how terrible it is. How could someone do such a thing? We'll glance at our phones as the first pictures of the vibrant victims pop up, but then we'll also look at photos of our friends' vacations and cats.
We were lucky this time. This time we found out from a tweet and not a police officer's phone call in the middle of the night. This time we could keep our distance - our sadness and disbelief neatly contained into an anecdote at a Game of Thrones viewing party. This time our lives continue untouched while we wait for the next time.