Editorial | The fragility of life
Illustration by RUPALI INGLE, Illustrator
The night of the Orange mass shooting March 31, a few hours after the tragic event, The Panther’s managing editor went to take pictures. The first thing he thought when he arrived at the scene, he said, was how eerily quiet it was.
The air hung heavy, humid with the weight of death, outside the Unified Homes real estate office suites on West Lincoln Avenue. Yellow caution tape sectioned off the street, its translucency emitting the reflection of swirling blue and red police lights. Journalists paced on the opposite side of the street, the shutters of their cameras flashing every so often, as officers milled about.
Yet, there was no noise other than the occasional murmur from a reporter or nearby onlooker. No wailing of sirens. No crying. No … nothing. The loudest thing in the vicinity were the nighttime crickets.
Some reporters made small talk; just another day on the job. Nearby police officers cracked the occasional smile.
Sure, everyone grieves in different ways, and our bodies produce automatic coping mechanisms for trauma. But this was a mass shooting in our own community. It got us thinking. Have we all, as a society, grown so accustomed to death in the past year that the very concept of it — unless a direct or perceived threat to our safety — is desensitized to us?
About three weeks ago, eight people were killed in the March 16 Atlanta massage parlor shootings. Ten people were killed March 24 at the King Soopers grocery store shooting in Boulder, Colorado. Factoring in the Orange shooting, each incident took place in the span of a month. Since the events in Atlanta, there have been at least 20 instances of mass shootings, and despite what conventional wisdom would dictate with more people staying home due to the pandemic, mass shootings increased by nearly 50% in 2020.
And what we just did exactly in the paragraph above — throw numbers at you — explains why we think the foreign concept of mass death has become twistedly normalized. These shootings, loss of human life, have become statistics and headlines. Think of how we view the ever-escalating death toll from COVID-19 and how we compare numbers of people infected by a life-threatening virus as a way to know if we can go to the movies or Disneyland again. We’re disconnected from the very idea of mortality.
These are real people suffering, dying, every day. 9-year-old Matthew Farias died in his mother’s arms during the Orange shooting. 58-year-old Leticia Solis Guzman, 50-year-old Luis Tovar, and his 28-year-old daughter Genevieve Raygoza had everything taken from them in an instant.
We’ve grown up conducting drills for what to do in the event of a shooting. Those drills were just another day at school that people started taking less seriously over time. Many, including some of us, have disregarded proper safety protocol in favor of indoor gatherings with friends because the pandemic’s death toll has become just a number to us.
But we don’t want to turn this editorial into a debate about gun control or pandemic safety habits. Those conversations have become so heavily politicized that they’ve only further desensitized us from what should be a place of mourning.
It feels as if the Orange shooting was somewhat of a wake-up call. The fact that it occurred less than 10 minutes from our own campus — in our own city — is a daunting reality that should remind us we are not separate from these statistics. Death and tragedy can happen any time, anywhere. It reminds us that our loved ones, or ourselves, can lose their lives just as instantaneously.
As difficult as it is, it’s crucial to reflect upon death — not only the memories and legacies of those who have passed, but also the transient nature of life itself. To treat COVID-19 cases and shooting deaths as statistics disregards all that’s precious, delicate and ethereal about a beating heart.