Guns, Terrorism, and a Night at the Movies
The woman circled the front rows of the theatre, layers of clothing hanging off her like the sails of a ghost ship before settling on a seat in the very front. She laid aside her umbrella, golf bag and the random flotsam she had acquired at some point in her life. Maybe that morning, maybe years ago. Her angry mumbling got a bit louder with profanities bubbling up and filling the auditorium as she seemed to start assembling what appeared to be poles from a tent.
Her manic movements and sudden appearance during the last 20 minutes of the new Tom Cruise vehicle, American Made on Monday night were sadly typical of the rising population of homeless in San Francisco. On any other day, the movie goers would have shrugged her off and waited for an usher to ask her to leave. But the night before a man unloaded thousands of rounds of ammunition on concert goers wounding over 500 and killing 59 people. 59 humans gone while enjoying a night out. 59 families heartbroken trying to understand how something like this could happen. 59 people who won’t be brought back by thoughts and prayers and other mealy-mouthed platitudes delivered by politicians more concerned with votes and reelection funding than the lives of the people that put them in office.
Try to think of the names 59 friends and family off the top of your head. It’s hard. Now imagine they’re all gone because a terrorist decided to kill innocent people enjoying a night out with friends. Regardless of his warped reasons, the Las Vegas gunman was a terrorist. In addition to that incredibly monstrous act, he also instilled terror and distrust in people. That’s what terrorists do regardless of their twisted ideology, they scare communities for days, weeks, months, sometimes years after their act.
That fear lingers in the back of our minds even when we try to escape the world if only for a few hours at a concert, movie, play or eating dinner. Because they’ve made it clear, those are no longer safe zones. No where is safe.
When the woman tossed her golf bag down with a thud, a man one row back and few seats over stood up. He tried to see what she was doing for a few seconds, then decided to leave. The couple sitting nearest to my wife and I also got up and hurried to the exit. Suddenly, of the approximately 15 people in the theatre, all but three were rushing out of the auditorium. Myself, my wife and the man sitting behind us.
The mass exodus scared my wife and I though. We stood up and inched our way down the aisle tentatively. We watched the woman as she continued to mumble profanities and fumble with her tent poles. A theatre employee came in and told the woman she couldn’t throw her stuff on the ground. That was met with louder profanities. The employee had just inched past the five foot mark at some point in her life and weighed less than the bag of random golf clubs that sat at the foot of the screen. She was our savior. He appearance brought us back to the normal world where sometimes, weird things happen because San Francisco can’t figure out how to treat some of its most at risk people with dignity.
My wife an I sat down having seen similar scenarios play out dozens of times while living in the city. She leaned over and whispered, “I wasn’t sure what was happening and I got scared when everyone got up and left. Why did they leave?”
I replied “paranoia.” But the man behind us had a more solid answer, “fear” he said. He was right.
“A man killed over 50 people at a concert with a machine gun. Now we’re all afraid of everyone and anything out of the ordinary. They can call him a lone wolf all they want, but he was a fucking terrorist because now we’re all scared,” I whispered to my wife while Tom Cruise was probably running onscreen.
I’m not afraid of ISIS. I’m not afraid of Russia. I’m a bit afraid that Trump and Kim Jong-un might start a nuclear war. What I’m afraid of is Americans. Americans with guns they have no business owning. I’m afraid of American terrorists unloading clip after clip after clip into innocent people.
Sunday night in Las Vegas was an act of terrorism. We still don’t know what the man’s motivation was for killing innocent people. But the end result is a nation filled with fear because we keep seeing the same horrible thing happening again and again.
One couple returned to the theatre after the woman and her belongings left. We finished the movie and went home. I thought about that feeling in your chest that surfaces when your lizard brain decides between fight or flight. I had that in the theatre while watching a fucking Tom Cruise movie because a disheveled woman dropped a bag of golf clubs on the floor. Holy shit we’re fucked as a country.
Welcome to the new America I guess.
