The strange reality of being old enough to remember when mass shootings shocked us
I wonder if florists in and around Lewiston, Maine, are out of peace lilies, or carnations, or white roses, the types of flowers mourners ask for when looking to purchase a sympathy bouquet.
I wonder if florists everywhere, even in remote places like Lewiston, keep a significant inventory on hand. Just in case.
I wonder if there even are mourners, anymore, or if any flowers are purchased. No matter how many are killed. No matter where.
This time, it was Lewiston. Eighteen dead, some still in critical condition.
When 'going postal' came into the vernacular
I’m old enough to remember a time when such horrors shocked us.
On Aug. 20, 1986, a 44-year-old mail carrier named Patrick H. Sherrill walked into the post office where he worked in Edmond, Oklahoma., and opened fire with a couple of handguns, killing 14 coworkers and wounding six. He then killed himself.
It was such an unheard of atrocity that I was immediately dispatched by The Arizona Republic to the scene, along with journalists from all over the country. Variations on the phrase “going postal” oozed their way into the vernacular.
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After arriving in Edmond, my first stop was the local flower shop. I thought I might leave a bouquet outside the post office, where there was a makeshift memorial.
"I'm sorry but we're temporarily out," shop owner Jim Burdick told me.
He said his store had been inundated with orders since "the event."
In those days, a man in his position could not have foreseen the demand.
Now, we can.
What happened in Edmond that awful day, and what followed, also became the prototype for how we react to gun massacres. And it’s useful, since so many of them followed.
Then, thousands of protesters demanded action
First, we express shock. Then we collect details of the event. We investigate the shooter. We tell the stories of heroic first responders. We honor the victims. Then we tell ourselves something must be done.
But not too soon.
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In April 1999, I was sent by The Republic to Littleton, Colorado. Dozens of other journalists were already there. Hundreds.
A few days earlier two armed young men, one 18 and one 17, walked into Columbine High School and opened fire, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding more than 20 others.
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I stuck around when the National Rifle Association decided that it was going ahead with its planned convention in nearby Denver. Thousands of protesters turned up, demanding national action on gun violence.
At the convention, the late actor and then-NRA President Charlton Heston told a cheering crowd, “Each horrible act can’t become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us.”
That kind of talk almost seems quaint now.
From calling for change to simply keeping score
The NRA no longer has to make such bold statements. Over the years and with so many mass shootings (566 already this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive) our view of such incidents has changed.
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It’s as if we do not see them as something we can prevent, or even deter. It's as if we think of them now as not being human caused, but as acts of nature, like floods or tornadoes or wildfires.
These days, we simply keep score.
The 18 killed in Maine on Wednesday put it in our top 10, just behind the 21 killed in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, and just ahead of the 17 killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018.
Good people call for action, of course. We tell ourselves something must be done. But not too soon. That’s what we hear from politicians and the gun lobby that owns them. First, they say, we must give ourselves time to grieve. And we do.
The mourning has not ended since the day I left Edmond in late August 1986.
EJ Montini is a columnist at The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com, where this column first published. Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maine shooting is one of deadliest in US. Do we even grieve anymore?
