June 12, 2016: The Pulse Nightclub Shooting

June 12, 2016, 10 years ago: Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, is hosting a Latin Night when 102 people are shot by a single gunman. Of those, 49 died.

The shooter was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Long Island native, a son of Afghan immigrants, who was working for the Florida Department of Corrections. His family was described as moderate Muslims, but going back to his childhood, he had a preoccupation with violence. He had sworn allegiance to the terrorist group ISIL, and said that the killing of ISIL official Abu Waheeb in Iraq the month before set him off. After a 3-hour standoff inside the club, Orlando police shot and killed him.

The massacre was officially classified a terrorist attack, and still ranks as the deadliest one in America since 9/11. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, but that record only lasted until October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas -- one that has not been officially classified as a terrorist attack.

The massacre deeply shook the people of Central Florida, and gay Americans everywhere. At the time, what was then named Orlando City Stadium was being constructed in Orlando, to be the home of Major League Soccer's Orlando City SC (Soccer Club), and the National Women's Soccer League's Orlando Pride, a name obliquely referencing women's soccer's ties to the gay community.

When the stadium opened on February 24, 2017, 49 seats in Section 12 were painted in a rainbow pattern, as a memorial to the Pulse victims. The venue was renamed Exploria Stadium in 2019, and Inter&Co Stadium in 2024.

Pulse had opened in 2004. It never reopened after the shooting, not even in a different location. The site of the building is planned for a memorial and museum, but has run into delays for various reasons.

September 6, 1949: The "Walk of Death" In Camden

September 6, 1949, 75 years ago: The "Walk of Death" occurs in Camden, the largest city in southern New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. It is regarded as the 1st mass shooting in American history.

Born in Camden in 1921, Howard Unruh was a moralist and a mama's boy. Serving in World War II changed him, leading to a description of him as "moody, nervous and detached." In 1949, he began arguing with his neighbors.

At 9:20 AM on September 6, he took a Lugar P08 pistol and some ammunition, walked onto River Road, into the shop of his neighbor, shoemaker John Pilarchik, and killed him. He then went to the barbershop of another neighbor, Clark Hoover, killing both him and Orris Smith, the 6-year-old boy whose hair he was cutting. He ran toward the pharmacy of another neighbor, Maurice Cohen. Before he could get there, he saw insurance man James Hutton blocking his path. A man truly in the wrong place at the wrong time, Hutton was killed, even though Unruh had never even met him before.

The Cohen family tried to escape. But Maurice's wife Rose and 12-year-old son Charles hid in closest, and Unruh found Rose, and killed her. Then he killed Cohen's mother, Minnie, because she was on the phone with the police. He followed Maurice onto a porch roof, and shot him. Charles got away unharmed, the only surviving member of the family.

Unruh walked back to River Road, saw a car coming, and shot the driver, Alvin Day. He went after another neighbor at his store, tailor Thomas Zegrino. He wasn't there, making him the only intended victim to survive. But his wife Helga was there, and Unruh killed her.

He ran back to River Road, saw a car waiting at an intersection, and shot everybody in it: Helen Wilson, her son John, and her mother, Emma Matlack. All 3 died. He then fired through an apartment window, killing 2-year-old Thomas Hamilton. Total victims: 13.

A man named Frank Engel saw Unruh from a tavern window, ran out, and shot him in the leg. Trying to get away, Unruh shot at Madeline Harris and her son Armand, outside their home. Both were wounded, but survived.

Unruh went back to his apartment building, which was quickly surrounded by the police. They lobbed tear gas bombs into the apartment. He came out and gave up. The police found a list of his intended victims, an arsenal of weapons, and a Bible opened to the 24th Chapter of The Gospel of Matthew.

Unruh was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, making him immune to criminal prosecution. He was taken to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, and remained there until his death on October 19, 2009 -- 60 years after his crime. In his last interview with a psychologist, he showed no remorse, saying, "I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets."

He even outlived Charles Cohen, 12 at the time of the shooting. He died on September 4, 2009, at the age of 72. His funeral was 2 days later, on the 60th Anniversary of the crime. In the intervening years, mass shootings started out rare, then became common in the 1980s, and got out of control early in the 21st Century.

On February 14, 2018, there was a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people died. Carly Novell survived the mass shooting, by hiding in a closet. Just like her grandfather: Charles Cohen.

As Mark Twain once put it, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

April 20, 1999: The Columbine Massacre

April 20, 1999, 25 years ago: A mass shooting kills 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School, in the Denver suburb of Littleton, Colorado. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting at an American school. Another 21 were wounded, but survived.

What made it more chilling is that it was done by 2 of the school's own students, both seniors within weeks of graduation: Eric Harris, who had just turned 18 and had recently moved there after many places as the child of a U.S. Air Force officer; and Dylan Klebold, still 17 and a lifelong resident of the community.

Both worked at a nearby pizza parlor. According to Harris' journal, he had planned to exceed the death toll of the Oklahoma City bombing, 4 years plus 1 day earlier: 168.

President Bill Clinton, being a Democrat, had managed, through legislation while Congress was controlled by Democrats, to greatly reduce gun crime in America. Now, he wanted to do more. The Congress of that time, being controlled by Republicans, did nothing. No new legislation regarding gun control was put on the Presidential desk.

The school, and the unincorporated community in which it stands, were named for the State Flower of Colorado. The school opened in 1973, and, with retroactive irony, its mascot is the Rebels, with a logo reminiscent of the Continental Army in the War of the American Revolution. If Harris and Klebold only had the kind of weapons available then, the death toll would have been much lower.

Among Columbine's graduates is Darrel Akerfelds, who pitched for 4 different major league teams from 1986 to 1991. He also died too soon, at 50, in 2012, from cancer.

A memorial to the victims opened at the school near the start of the 2007-08 schoolyear. Today, the school has an enrollment of about 1,700.

Only 1 game was canceled in any sport: The Colorado Rockies, the team closest to the crime, canceled their games that night and the next one, at Coors Field against the Montreal Expos.

*

On a separate note, although this is about a game that I do not consider a sport: On this day, for his comic strip B.C., Johnny Hart drew this strip, showing that he loves golf, but is frustrated by it:

In case you're having trouble reading it:

Panel 1: Woman asks male golfer, "Let me get this straight, the less I hit the ball, the better I am doing." Golfer says, "That's right."

Panel 2: Woman asks golfer, "Then why do it at all?"

Panel 3, at night, so, clearly, golfer has been thinking about it the whole time: "Why... do it... at all?"

December 14, 2012: The Sandy Hook Massacre

December 14, 2012, 10 years ago: A mentally ill 20-year-old man named Adam Lanza shoots and kills his mother in Newtown, Connecticut. He then goes to Sandy Hook Elementary School, and shoots 20 children and 6 adult staff members. As the police close in, he kills himself.

Newtown, then as now a town of about 27,000 people, was home to rubber innovator Charles Goodyear, film director Elia Kazan, civil rights lawyer Burke Marshall, decathlete-turned-businessman-turned-businesswoman Bruce-turned-Caitlin Jenner, Blossom actress Jenna von Oÿ, and Suzanne Collins, author of the Hunger Games books. The school is about 76 miles northeast of Times Square. Violent crime was rare there: In the 10 years before the Sandy Hook Massacre, there had been only 1 homicide in the town.

At the time, I had a job connected to social media, and it forced me to watch television, going back and forth between the news channels. It was a Friday, when I was allowed to go home at 3:00. This time, I couldn't. I just couldn't. I just sat there, watching the coverage, until I realized how dark it was, and how I hated getting home on the bus, and left at around 7:00.

It sounds like the story you hear about people, now old, glued to their TV sets after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. I had already joined the entire country in doing so after the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 (not after the explosion of Columbia in 2003, though); during the O.J. Simpson bronco chase in 1994; after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; and after the hit on Osama bin Laden the year before.

Lanza's main weapon was a Bushmaster XM-15, a model of AR-15 automatic rifle. This was hardly the only recent mass shooting in which it had been used, so now, calls came for its banning, including from the President of the United States, Barack Obama. But the Republican Party controlled Congress, and absolutely no action was taken.

And so, the war on guns was over, and the guns won. The American people had just re-elected Obama the month before, but had re-elected the Republican Congress as well. It was a message: "This is America. Here, we love our guns more than we love our children."

What's more, conspiracy theories blew up, some suggesting that the massacre never happened. And National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre suggesting we should have more guns, not fewer. Leading to a rare agreement in front page headlines of the Daily News and the New York Post.

There had been genuine wackos in American politics before, during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, to the John Birch Society in the 1960s, to the conspiracy flakes gunning for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, to the Tea Party fanatics that had already been established in 2009, Obama's 1st year in office. But this now seems, in hindsight, like the launch of the QAnon Era, where such dishonesty, stupidity and ignorance began to be shamelessly brought into the mainstream.

And the mass shootings have never stopped, including in schools. Donald Trump did nothing about it while he occupied the White House. Joe Biden has tried, and did get Congress to pass a minor improvement on background checks.

There appears to be no connection between the school being named "Sandy Hook" and an outcropping of land on the Atlantic Coast of Monmouth County, New Jersey having the same name.

Those children would now be juniors in high school.

When Will We Have Our Independence From Guns?

Today is the 4th of July. The anniversary of American independence.

Too many people are dependent on their guns, to give themselves a sense of purpose, of freedom, of manhood, whatever.

Just in the last 48 hours:

* A person described as a young white man, 18 to 20, shot and killed 6 people today, wounding at least 24 others, at a 4th of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. As of this writing, the suspect is still at large.

* About 35 miles to the south, on the South Side of Chicago, 5 people were shot in a mass shooting. All are expected to survive.

* There were 6 people shot in a mass shooting in Richmond, Virginia. All are expected to survive.

* A man shot 2 men, including an off-duty New York City Department of Corrections officer, at a pre-4th of July party in the neighborhood of Queens Village last night. That officer managed to return fire, and put the shooter in the hospital. All are expected to survive.

* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Mullins, South Carolina. All are expected to survive.

* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Tacoma, Washington. All are expected to survive.

* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Manassas, Virginia, site of the Civil War's First and Second Battles of Bull Run. All are expected to survive.

* A 19-year-old man was shot and killed on Saturday night, while riding his scooter in the Melrose section of The Bronx. He was caught in the crossfire between 2 gangs shooting at each other, who apparently didn't hit anyone else.

* And 3 people died, with 4 others wounded, in a mass shooting on Saturday night, outside Dallas in Haltom City, Texas.

I don't want to hear one single word about how Chicago is run by a liberal Mayor that can't control the city. Texas has a right-wing fanatic Governor in thrall to the National Rifle Association, and he can't control his State.

The reason there is a proliferation of guns in Chicago is because it's right next-door to the State of Indiana, who had a Governor a few years ago who drastically loosened that State's gun laws, as a gift to the NRA. That Governor's name was Mike Pence. You can be damned sure that, when the traitors of January 6, 2021 were chanting to hang Mike Pence, this gift to the NRA was not one of the reasons.

I don't want to hear one single word about how New York, or any other city, has a liberal Mayor that can't control the city. You want to control the cities? Control the damned guns!

For half a century, conservatives have said that liberals want to confiscate the guns. Jimmy Carter never tried it. Bill Clinton never tried it. Barack Obama never tried it. Joe Biden hasn't tried it. Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, Carl Albert, Tip O"Neill, Jim Wright, Tom Foley, Nancy Pelosi? None of them has ever allowed a bill allowing the confiscation of guns to be entered into the House. Nor has any Democratic Senate Majority Leader allowed such a bill to be entered into the U.S. Senate: Not Robert Byrd, not George Mitchell, not Harry Reid, not Chuck Schumer.

So, conservatives are lying. Again.

So, bring back the death penalty, right? That will deter these shooters, right? Wrong: These bastards usually go into it thinking they have nothing to live for, so, "If I'm going down, I'm taking as many MFers as I can with me." Getting shot by "a good guy with a gun" is not a deterrent. Going to prison is not a deterrent. The death penalty is not a deterrent.

You know what the deterrent is? I think you know what the deterrent is. But I'm going to be the one to say what the deterrent is.

The deterrent is failure. It's not being able to do it. It's not being able to get your hands on the weapon that will allow you to do it. The deterrent is not having a gun. Prevent these men from having guns, and they won't shoot places up. Simple as that.

And I don't want to hear, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Yes, the off-duty officer in Queens returned fire and stopped the bad guy with the gun. He is a well-training member of, as the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would put it, a well-regulated militia. He is the kind of person who should be allowed to have a firearm. Most people do not have that kind of training, and do not belong to a well-regulated anything.

A recent New York Times article studied the 433 mass shootings in America from 2000 to 2021:

* 113 times, the attacker left the scene, with no one stopping him.

* 98 times, the police shot the attacker.

* 72 times, the attacker killed himself at the scene, with no one stopping him.

* 42 times, a civilian subdued the attacker.

* 38 times, the attacker killed himself at the scene, rather than let the police, who were by then on the scene, take him alive.

* 33 times, the police subdued the attacker.

* 22 times, a civilian shot the attacker.

* 15 times, the attacker surrendered.

Therefore:

* 26 percent of the time, 1 out of 4, nobody stopped the bad guy with the gun, not even the bad guy with the gun.

* 25 percent of the time, 1 out of 4, the bad guy with a gun was stopped by himself, not letting his own death be a deterrent.

* 48 percent of the time, nearly 1 out of 2, a good guy, either with or without a gun, stopped the bad guy with the gun.

So there's slightly less than a 50-50 chance that a good guy, with or without a gun, will stop the bad guy with a gun. And better than a 50-50 chance that he won't.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." No shit, Sherlock. That's why we want background checks for the people, not the guns.

All these people who think they would be the "good guy with a gun" think they would be John Wayne, blowing away Liberty Valance and saving Jimmy Stewart and the rest of the town. Would they, hell. More likely, they would be like Fredo Corleone in The Godfather, too scared to do it right, fumbling with the gun.

And you know what? It didn't matter. Even if Fredo had handled the situation as well as was possible in that moment, and blown away both shooters, it wouldn't have mattered at all: His father, Don Vito Corleone, had already been shot. His life was already in the balance. He might have recovered sooner, but there was no way to know that at the time.

It wouldn't have mattered if Fredo had properly handled his gun, because it was too late. Who knows, one of the gunmen might have turned the gun on him, and then Fredo would be dead, years before his brother Michael had to take matters into his own hands.

Because, and I want you to read this very carefully: You cannot outdraw a man who has already drawn his gun.

A high school classmate of mine asked what I would do if a man with a gun invaded my home. I told the truth: I would die. And so would you. You're not going to defend yourself. Not successfully, anyway. You got a gun? That gun will not help you one damned bit. He sees your gun, he fires his, and you are dead. You get off a shot that kills him, too? What difference does that make? You still end up dead.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is stopping him from getting a gun.

The 4th of July. Independence Day. When is America going to declare its independence from guns? On this day when we celebrate our freedom from a tyranny, when are we going to be free from the tyranny of the NRA?

UPDATE: A 7th victim died in Highland Park. Before nightfall, Robert E. Crimo III, 22, who identifies himself as "Awake the Rapper," and actually had a minor hit song in 2018, was arrested.

But before the night ended, a celebration in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is also where Philly has the end of its Thanksgiving Day Parade, was broken up when a man shot 2 officers, one from Philadelphia and one brought in for assistance from suburban Montgomery County. They are expected to recover. But there were hundreds of police and security officers on hand, and none of those "good guys with guns" stopped the "bad guy with a gun."

There Are Bigger Things Than This Yanks-Rays Series

If a Major League Baseball series happening over Memorial Day Weekend can be considered "big," the one that began at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida last night is.

Bigger still is the terrorism that some people are using guns to inflict upon this country. Before the game, both the Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays issued statements about this. 

The Yankees sent Nestor Cortes out to start. Once again, Nestor was nasty: Over the 1st 8 innings, he allowed no runs, just 3 hits, and only 1 walk, striking out 5.

That called for good support from the Yankee bats. It took a while, and it needed some help at the start, but it came. Making his Yankee debut, wearing Number 24, former St. Louis Cardinal All-Star 3rd baseman Matt Carpenter led off the top of the 6th by getting hit by a pitch from Rays starter Ryan Yarbrough. Marwin Gonzalez singled. Aaron Judge singled Carpenter home. Anthony Rizzo popped up. Judge stole 2nd. Gleyber Torres popped up. Miguel Andújar singled Judge home. It was 3-0 Yankees.

The Yankees got another run in the 7th: Isiah Kiner-Falefa drew a leadoff walk (since the Yankees already had, as it turned out, enough runs to win the game, this leadoff walk didn't "kill" the Rays), Jose Trevino singled, Carpenter moved the runners over with a groundout, and IKF scored on a wild pitch.

IKF led off the 9th with a single, and was moved over by a Trevino groundout. Carpenter and Gonzalez walked to load the bases, and Judge got IKF home with a sacrifice fly. Rizzo doubled Carpenter and Gonzalez home. 7-0.

Cortes was sent out to see if he could complete the shutout. He gave up a leadoff single, and was allowed to try no more. Aaron Boone replaced him with Wandy Peralta, who was a little shaky, allowing 2 runs, but finished the job. Yankees 7, Rays 2. WP: Cortes (4-1). No save. LP: Yarbrough (0-1).

The Yankees are now 5 1/2 games ahead of the Rays in the American League Eastern Division, 5 in the all-important loss column.

The series continues tonight. Jameson Taillon starts against Jeffrey Springs.

I want to win. But if someone offered me a deal of banning assault weapons, and the price was the Yankees losing every game for the rest of the season, and I would be the only one who knew, and would face mockery over what would then be the worst season in Yankee history, I would take it. I could live with it. So could a lot of people who are going to die from gunshot wounds this year.