Rev Sen Warnock Has Had Just About Enough Of Well-Regulated American Gun Violence
Another day, another mass shooting … literally.
Wednesday afternoon, 24-year-old Deion Patterson opened fire in a downtown Atlanta medical office building. He killed a 39-year-old woman and injured four other women, aged 25, 39, 56, and 71. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the four injured women “are fighting for their lives at Grady Hospital."
According to Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum, it's unclear if Patterson had specifically targeted the victims. We also don't know if their gender was a factor. However, Patterson's mother was with him during the shooting. Fortunately, she was uninjured. Patterson's family is cooperating with law enforcement.
Atlanta police lifted a shelter-in-place advisory more than two hours after the shooting when they could find no evidence that Patterson was still in the area. However, the police urged people to stay away from the area of investigation and especially from the suspect if they were to encounter him. Patterson remained at large until Wednesday evening when he was arrested without major incident.
KJ Johnson was in the Northside medical building for his son's medical appointment, and he learned about the shooting while watching it all unfold on a waiting room television.
"At that time, we had no idea there was a shooting. But then the television was on and there was breaking news on the television. And they mentioned that there was an active shooter and they gave the address and the address was the building that we were in," Johnson said outside the building.
The shooting took place just two floors above him, he recounted.
"We were in the ninth floor. So once everyone heard the shooting happened on the 11th floor, you can imagine that some of the folks in the room got a little nervous, a little tense," he said.
It's just another day, and another regularly scheduled mass shooting in America. Texas police just caught Francisco Oropesa, who'd gunned down five of his neighbors last week, after a four-day manhunt. This can't be how we should live because of the paranoid demands of a gun-obsessed minority.
During a gut-wrenching speech on the Senate floor, Georgia's Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock noted how this latest shooting impacted his own children, who live in Atlanta.
“Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock reacts to the deadly shooting in Atlanta: "It underscores the fact that none of us are safe, no matter where we are. This happened in a medical facility, where people are trying to find healing.””
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) 1683144560
"I feel it in my bones because my own two children were on lockdown this afternoon. I have two small children and their schools are on lockdown responding to this tragedy. They're there, I'm here, hoping and praying they're safe," Warnock said, adding with regret, "But the truth is none of us are safe."
"The unspoken assumption is that this won’t happen to me, this won’t happen to someone I love," he continued. "But with a mass shooting a day, the chances are great."
There have been at least 160 mass shooting so far this year, and Wednesday, May 3, was just the 123rd day of the year. They occur so often, Warnock warns, that "tragically we act as if this is routine."
"We behave as if this is normal. It is not normal. It is not right for us to live in a nation where nobody's safe no matter where they are. We're not safe in our schools. We're not safe in our workplaces. We're not safe at the grocery store. We're not safe at movie theaters. We're not safe at spas. We're not safe in our houses of worship. There is no sanctuary in the sanctuary."
EVERYWHERE WE'RE NOT SAFE:
After Nashville School Shooting, Republicans Are Ready To Regulate Trans People
Well-Regulated Bank Employee Kills Five, Injures Eight In Louisville, Kentucky
Another A-Hole With An AR-15 Shoots Up An Oregon Supermarket
Dark Knight Shooting Victims Practically Shot Themselves, Says Prominent Arizona Idiot
Conservatives Would Hate If Atlanta Shooter’s Hate Crime Was Considered Hate Crime
11 Dead In Shooting At Synagogue. Can All This Shit Please Stop Now?
Warnock is a pastor so of course he's "praying for those who are affected by this tragedy," but he also knows that "thoughts and prayers are not enough." That's not blasphemy. It's scripture: James 2:26 states, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead ..." This Bible verse motivates Warnock the politician.
"In fact, it is a contradiction to say that you are thinking and praying and then do nothing. It is to make a mockery of prayer. It is to trivialize faith. We pray not only with our lips, we pray with our legs. We pray by taking action."
We can no longer fall victim to despair or to the hip cynicism that says that after Sandy Hook, the gun debate was over. Regular gun violence should never stop horrifying us and never stop inspiring us to action, to demanding a better tomorrow today.
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Rev Warnock is a gem.
COVID showed us beyond any doubt that this is irrevocably screwed because of how we pander to the absolute worst parts of society.
Gun nutsAnti vaxxers/anti maskersMAGA supportersChristian zealots Three percentersWhite supremacists Anti abortionistsHomophobesVote suppressors
All these groups, and many more, have this country in a chokehold because the right panders to them because they are their base now and the left panders to them because they’re afraid of what might happen if we “upset” them and/or because we don’t want be seen as uncivil.
Unless we change tactics, we’re never going to be rid of their stain.