Seven degrees to gun violence

I had a morbid thought that I cannot shake and I need to write it out. First of all, I want to say that I am not trying to be glib or make light of tragedy. If anything, by reflecting on the prevalence of gun violence and mass shootings in this country, I am pointing out that they are a HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED! Anyway, I digress. Let me explain my thought process.

 

Due to my obsession with RuPaul's Drag Race, I follow a huge number of drag queens, gay men, and transgender people on social media, mostly on Instagram. In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, I have seen a huge number of posts from them expressing feelings of grief, anger, frustration, and sadness, and seeking help for the victims of the shooting and their families. Granted, these type of posts occur on social media after every tragedy of this sort, which seems to be fucking weekly at this point. Luckily I am mostly friends with smart, like-minded people who post about the sadness and the need to fix this fucking gun problem, i.e. we need to do more than pray for them, we need to prevent this and protect them/us. And not with more fucking guns, with less guns. But in particular after Orlando, I saw a huge number of the performers that I follow posting specific pictures and memories of the individuals murdered at the nightclub. As participants in the Orlando gay scene, whether due to residences, friends, or performances, they knew many of the people that were killed. I know that this happens after every tragedy, but I had never really seen such a specific outpouring. Because I follow so many members of the gay community, I think I just saw more in relation to this shooting. And of course, this was the largest, most horrific mass shooting in the nation's history, so the volume of response and the number of victims was much larger. This got me thinking....

When we were teenagers, my best friend Niki and I played a game called Seven Degrees to Kevin Bacon all the time. It was a fun game that you can just play verbally, with no need for a game board or specific setting. For anyone that is not familiar, basically one person says the name of any actor or actress and the other person has to connect that actor or actress to Kevin Bacon in less than seven steps using their co-starring movie roles. The idea is that Kevin Bacon has had random parts in so many noteworthy movies for the past three decades that he is only a few films away from every other actor in Hollywood. Additionally, although Kevin Bacon is rarely the lead actor in films, he is often among really famous ensemble casts and other actors that have a huge number of roles, so he has many connections to other films. Naturally you want to try to stump the other person and pick an actor that is more than seven steps. but I tell you, that is really hard to do! For example, I'll say Brad Pitt. Too easy, they star together in the film Sleepers. Only 1 step. Ok so I'll think older. Morgan Freemen. The first one that comes to mind is that the warden in Shawshank Redemption (who I just looked up, Bob Gunton) is in JFK with Kevin Bacon. Two steps. Still too easily. I'll think younger. Blake Lively. Still too fucking easy. Blake Lively is in Green Lantern with Tim Robbins and he is in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon. You get the idea.

So it occurred to me today. I bet that everyone in this country is less than seven degrees away from the victim of gun violence, and potentially even a mass shooting at this point. In fact, I guarantee it. I started thinking about this theory and I was sickened to realize that I am only one degree away from a public shooting. Last September, my former colleague at Texas Tech, Ethan Schmidt, was killed in his office at Delta State University. Like myself, Ethan had moved on to a different position at a new school. I admit we were not close friends and we had only spent one year as colleagues at Tech, but I would definitely consider him a person that I knew. We chatted weekly, we went out for happy hour with colleagues, we went to department parties together, I had met his family, and I thought really highly of him. His death was so surreal and awful. Just sitting in his office and he was shot by another employee who had already killed his estranged girlfriend and later shot himself. I was so angry about Ethan's murder. As far as I could tell, he had no real connection to the shooter, except for working together, and there was no reason why Ethan was targeted. In later investigations, it seems that Ethan was simply walking in/out of his office and Lamb shot him three times in the head. WHAT THE FUCK?! I couldn't stop thinking about Ethan's wife and family. He was a father of three kids, including an adorable little girl with blond curls. The kind of cute that makes my ovaries hurt. I felt so bad for his family. And then the fucking media started referring to it as a "lover's triangle" which there was absolutely NO evidence of and likely just came from an "anonymous source," i.e. some fucking dumbass outside the building that was interviewed and suggested the possibility with no proof whatsoever. Regardless, this story was picked up by national news sources as fact. I was enraged because I KNEW it wasn't true and it was so hurtful to his wife. Equally so, news source treated the story of a lover's triangle as the sort of end of the matter. Like, "well, he killed them because they had sex. Case closed." THAT DOES NOT JUSTIFY MURDERING SOMEONE! What kind of fucking country do we live in that it just accepted fact that if you have an affair, you might get killed.

As the news of Orlando spread, I was just waiting for some anti-gay asshat to make some inappropriate comment about how the victims "deserved it" for making god angry or whatever, ala Pat Robertson blaming that people of Haiti for the 2010 earthquake. It was literally hours before Texas Lt. Governor tweeted a bible passage, "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." There is some debate about whether or not the tweet was in response to the shooting. Perhaps not. But from a super conservative opponent of gay marriage and trans bathrooms, it would not be out of character. In addition, Marco Rubio claimed that this sort of tragedy can happen anywhere "in the world" and this was just "Orlando's turn." Which makes me fucking ill to think that mass shootings are that normalized in our country. Or human condom, Gov. Rick Scott deftly dodging questions about how to prevent such tragedies in order to avoid any comments about getting rid of guns that might anger his NRA campaign donors. Thanks to Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for this information. And of course, King of the Assholes, Donald Trump, immediately started spinning the tragedy for his political gain by blaming Hillary Clinton and insinuating that Obama is Muslim. Thank to Colby for this info.

So I'm getting off track. The bottom line is: Gun violence is too common. Gun violence is being normalized in our country. Defense of guns is idiotic, incorrect, and dangerous. I don't know what it is going to take for Americans to realize that guns are a problem. I think it is getting to the point that everyone has a personal connection to a victim of gun violence. Maybe that will finally lead to change! I'm sure that this is already a study underway. If not, some researchers at the Pew Center or Ford Foundation or whatever need to fucking get on it.