They Called it the Worst.

APRIL 20, 1999

I’m only 5 years old and in Kindergarten when I experience my first school lockdown.

The news comes in quick that Columbine High School, only two miles away from my elementary school is experiencing a shooting. Two young men named Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris have walked into the school with shotguns and rifles and opened fire. I don’t remember much from that day except that the atmosphere was steeped in fear. My mother picks me up as soon as the lockdown is over.

We go home and my mother watches the news. She learns that 13 people have been killed.  I play with plastic dinosaurs in my bedroom.

They call it one of the worst shootings in American history.

People send their thoughts and prayers.

The world moves forward.

 

JULY 20, 2012

My parents wake up to a phone call from my older brother.

“Is Chase ok?” he asks.

Confused, they peek into my bedroom and find me sleeping soundly.

It’s the summer before my Freshman year in college and I’m trying to make the most of the summer before textbooks and long homework hours take over my life.

The night before, a group of friends and myself had gone to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, a movie I had been looking forward to for a long time.

I had mentioned this to my brother. And that’s why he called.

Because the night before, in Aurora, Colorado, a place only a few miles from where I lived at the time, James Holmes walked into a crowded midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire on the crowd with assault weapons.

I wake up the next morning to several texts from friends asking if I’m alright.

I watch the news for hours, hoping I don’t see any familiar faces on the list of those who were killed. My heart aches and I briefly think about how easy it would have been for me to be in that very theater that very night.

It is the first time in my life that I truly acknowledge that I am not safe.

12 people are killed that night in the movie theater.

They call it one of the worst shootings in American history.

People send their thoughts and prayers.

The world moves forward.

 

DECEMBER 14, 2012

It is the last Friday of my first semester in college and I find myself running across campus with a 25-pound backpack trying not to be late to my last final.

It’s a cold December day and the wind is bitter and harsh. It nips at my face as I run.

Meanwhile, halfway across the country, in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year old man walks into Sandy Hook Elementary School and opens fire with a rifle.

It is not until later in the day that I hear the news. I sit in my dorm room for hours and read articles about the event. My heart is in pieces.

This time, it’s children.

It’s the first time in my life that I acknowledge that, not only am I not safe, but neither are our children.

I note that today should be a happy day for people like me who have finished their first semester of college.

It is not a happy day. Instead, I feel utterly broken.

At the end of the day, 27 people are killed, most of them children of about the age of 6 or 7.

They call it one of the worst shootings in American history.

People send their thoughts and prayers.

The world moves forward.

 

DECEMBER 13, 2013

It has been almost exactly a year since the Sandy Hook shooting.

It is the last day of the semester and I find myself walking through the kitchen of one of the dining halls on campus. I adjust the nametag on my uniform.

As I walk through the kitchen I hear the words, “Arapahoe High School” from somewhere. I turn a corner and see two people talking.

“What was that you just said about Arapahoe?” I ask, “That’s where I went.”

The girl who had been speaking looks at me for a long second before she answers. I can tell that she is hesitating.

“There was a shooting there today,” she says.

I feel my stomach drop.

Thirty minutes later, at the end of my shift, I find myself in my dorm room once more, watching the news on my laptop.

I try calling some of the people I know who might still be in the building. I get no answers.

I call my ex-girlfriend and ask if she has heard from her brother or sister who were both in the school when the shooting started.

She cries on the phone and tells me she hasn’t.

I ask her to keep me updated.

At the end of the day, we learn that a Senior boy from the school walked in with a shotgun. He shot 17-year-old Claire Davis on his way to the library, where he intended to kill a member of the school faculty – a librarian who I personally knew during my time at the school.

I drive by the school the day after the shooting. The building has crime scene tape wrapped all the way around the perimeter.

I attend a candlelight vigil where people talk about what happened and what they will do moving forward. It is beautiful. There are tears and hugs and singing.

I look on Facebook and find alumni posting the school logo, an Arapahoe Warrior, as their profile pictures along with the phrase, “Warriors always take care of one another”.

It is unity in the face of tragedy.

A few days after the shooting, Claire Davis passes away.

They don’t call it one of the worst shootings in American history.

Instead, they praise the school faculty and the school resource officer who responded quickly.

But I can’t get my mind off of the parents of Claire Davis. And how, that morning, when they said goodbye to her, they probably didn’t think it was going to be the last time they ever spoke to their daughter.

People send their thoughts and prayers.

The world moves forward.

 

JUNE 12, 2016

I wake up. It feels like a normal summer morning. I slept far too long and now I am groggy. I stumble into the kitchen to brew some coffee.

“Did you hear about Orlando?” my roommate asks me from the living room.

“No,” I answer, “What happened?”

But I already know. I have a feeling.

I read about it a few minutes later. About how a man walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando with an assault weapon and killed 49 people.

“Surely, enough is enough,” I think.

“Surely, something will change this time.”

It doesn’t.

The shooting is the topic of much debate in the coming months. I watch the presidential candidates duke it out on stage during the debates. They talk about gun control but they don’t say much about what they will do.

Donald Trump wins the support of the NRA.

A short time later, he becomes President.

The shooting is devastating.

They call it the worst shooting in American history.

People send their thoughts and prayers.

The world moves forward.

 

OCTOBER 1, 2017

I’m up late, as I usually am on Sunday nights.

I am scrolling through Facebook when I see something about an active shooter situation in Las Vegas.

Perhaps it is the late night hour or the melatonin supplement that I just took, but I scroll onward, thinking, “Oh, it’s probably just some guy with a handgun. I’m sure things will be taken care of soon.”

I wake up the next morning and look at the news.

50 dead. Over 500 injured.

I’m shocked into silence.

In the following hours, I learn that a man who was staying at the Mandalay Bay Resort shot out of his window with assault weapons at the country music festival across the street. He had at least 20 firearms in his hotel room. Some of those were rifles equipped with scopes. Some of those were described as “AR-15 style assault rifles”.  He had hundreds of rounds of ammunition and used several different weapons during the attack.

At the time of this writing, the death toll from the incident is: 59 dead, 527 injured.

They are calling it the worst shooting in American history.

People are sending their thoughts and prayers.

It’s too early to even think about the world moving forward.

 

At this point, the normal responses feel like tropes to me.

How many times have we called something the worst shooting in American history?

How many times have people sent their thoughts and prayers?

How many times have we moved forward?

How many times have we said, “Now is the time for action” only for no action to be taken?

How many candlelight vigils must we hold?

How many mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers must attend funerals for loved ones who didn’t have to die?

How many active shooter drills must we practice?

How many times before it all gets old?

Before words run short and hearts go cold and people grow weary?

Before our passion turns into shrugs?

Before the suffering we see becomes too much and we wonder if there is anything left to do?

Before we buy into the lie that “there’s nothing to be done” or that “things like this will always happen”?

How much longer before enough is enough?

On April 20, 1999, enough was enough.

On July 20, 2012, enough was enough.

On December 14, 2012, enough was enough.

On December 13, 2013, enough was enough.

On June 12, 2016, enough was enough.

When is enough TRULY enough?

Is it today?

Or is this just another chapter in an endless saga?

I don’t know the answers. But my prayer is that this story of gun violence in our country ends soon. That we can close the cover and put it on the shelf and never open it again.

I don’t know. But I hope.

I hope we can rise.

I hope we can learn.

I hope we can love more.

I hope we can stop judging each other so harshly.

I hope we can step forward in unity.

I hope we can one day, finally, say “enough is enough” and actually mean it.

I hope.

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• Since this article was posted, there have been major mass shootings at:
  • Sutherland Springs, Texas – November 5, 2017
  • Parkland, Florida – February 14, 2018
  • Santa Fe, Texas – May 18, 2018
  • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – October 27, 2018
  • Thousand Oaks, California – November 8, 2018

 

This list hardly covers the gun violence that happens every day in our country. These are simply the shootings that have gotten the most media attention. For a more comprehensive list, please visit: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting