Went to an NFL game for the 1st time in years. Heightened security was unsettling. Only clear plastic bags allowed, hands in the air at metal detectors, armed police everywhere. Such militarization of a recreation venue is more suited to a war zone. We live in unacknowleged fear.
An unspoken acceptance that we’re always at risk of being targeted by a mass shooter when we gather in groups is now ingrained in our culture—just an everyday reality of our lives. We station snipers at entertainment centers. We arm teachers at school. And we change nothing.
We regulate explosives. We constantly anticipate terror attacks by Islamists and make harsh policies to monitor and prevent such activity. But a guy named John can buy a semiautomatic weapon in America as easily as a guy named Jihad. People keep dying and still we change nothing.
America will keep right on venerating death machines, counting casualties, turning gathering places into prisons and trying to avoid the realization that we are practically the only developed, conflict-free country to live in such fear of mass violence. Until we change something.
*sorry for the multiple repeated-and-deleted tweets in this thread, my Internet is terrible right now and keeps faking me out into sending the same tweet again
