As sundown approached on Sunday, Dec. 14, in Australia, members of the Jewish community prepared for worship, lighting the first candle on the menorah and celebrating the start of the eight-day festival of Hanukkah. Then, as approximately 1,000 Jews celebrated “Chanukah by the Sea” at Bondi Beach, two gunmen, a father and son, spearheaded what has been described as Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in a targeted attack.
Once proclaimed as a model to prevent mass shootings, it appears that the threat of gun violence still exists and can be dangerous in Australia, with 15 dead and more than 40 still hospitalized.
Meanwhile, on Saturday night, Dec. 13, in Brooklyn, six teenagers were shot outside of a venue following a Sweet 16 celebration. Police continue to search for the gunmen and reportedly believe the incident to be gang related.
And then, in the quiet town of Providence, Rhode Island, a still unidentified gunman killed two students and wounded nine others, also on Dec. 13, in what has become a far-too-common occurrence in America – another mass shooting, this time on the campus of Brown University.
Now, while federal law enforcement officials in the U.S. release inaccurate information about “a person of interest,” which may have allowed the real shooter to escape and confounded the efforts of local police, one must wonder what’s more important: being first to solve the crime or working collaboratively to ensure that the real perpetrator is captured?
During a press conference on Sunday evening, the mayor of Providence noted that while visiting several injured students in the hospital, one attributed practice drills for mass shootings in which they participated as a minor as the reason they were still alive.
Two other Brown students, one from California and the other from Florida, acknowledged that they both survived shootings while in high school and must now relive the horror as collegiates.
It’s ironic that American leaders profess to have a game plan for stopping the alleged flow of drugs from Venezuela, blowing up boats in international waters without provocation, and vowing to go ashore if necessary. And after two servicemen were recently killed in Syria, our president has already promised swift retaliation.
But when it comes to ending the scourge of guns, whether legal or ghost guns, and the loss of innocent lives over and over again, our leaders seem unable to agree on a solution.
Or maybe the answer, which is as clear as the nose on one’s face, would put too much of a dent in certain Americans’ pockets.