Thread by @amycourts

We were at the Mall of America.
My entire family, plus our oldest’s partner and my nibling.
Sitting on the top floor enjoying some tacos.
Then screams, and a rush of people running toward us.
There were gunshots fired nearby.
Everyone running toward us.

I live in North Mpls which means I have seen and heard some shit.
So believe me when I tell you:
I have never — NEVER — experienced such terror or chaos.
You cannot be ready for that.
You cannot active-shooter-drill your way to preparedness.

I got Eli (11) and Max (21) down two flights of escalators (why aren’t those immediately deactivated in an event like that???), and immediately searched for Matt & Leah (who were nearby).

Then all of us wondered where Paul (spouse) was — he was still inside, nearing the exit.

There are no words for the crushing anxiety of those moments waiting for him to get out.

We’re all home safe now.
We are and are not okay.

But my point is this:
Fuck the 2nd amendment.
Fuck your guns.
Fuck every single legislator that chooses every single day to put my and my entire family’s and YOUR entire families’ lives at risk in worship of guns.

America has a problem, and it is guns.

And also: Don’t let anyone tell you “This is what you get for defunding police!” 1) This happened in Bloomington, not Mpls. 2) MPD wasn’t defunded but massively REfunded. 3) Cops didn’t stop the shooter or even find them.

So yeah, I’m still 100% for #PoliceAbolitionNow

I also cannot stop thinking about all the people stuck **on the rides** in Nickelodeon Universe when hell broke loose. Can you imagine?? Little kids on rides when people are screaming and running, while 17yo workers try to figure out how to save/protect them? #ThisIsAmerica

This is what our love of guns has done. The generation raised on active shooter drills at school are now working at malls, saving smaller kids & grown adults during active shooter incidents there too. Because we’ve given them no escape. And we’ve called it “freedom.”

And now the Very Patriotic White Men™️ have arrived to do vomit violently, which feels super great today, so I’m muting this thread.

Thanks to all of you who’ve been kind, encouraging, and GET that it doesn’t have to be this way. I hope we find the courage to choose better.

This is not hyperbole.

https://twitter.com/annesta03/status/1555404306685333506?s=20&t=OEE5uNuPXN9R4KK7MxS8QA

Back to clarify: this was not a mass shooting event. It was (they say) personal beef between two groups/people.

That doesn’t change any of what we at the mall went through, or anything I’ve said. Gun worship, proliferation, and access is a beast we can & must address.

The all-day-everyday interpersonal violence that spills onto everyone else in loud ways sometimes is the meat of the gun proliferation problem. It’s the easiest to dismiss as “bad individuals” who make it easy to ignore this as the natural fruit of flooding the nation with guns.

That shit yesterday is constant. Bystanders get hit all the time. We pay attention when it’s a mom talking about getting her family away from an active shooter at the mall, but say “what do you expect?” when it happens outside my home on the streets.

I expect more is what.

I expect us to see the Big Stuff and then attend to the “little” stuff that is everywhere always, and move forward & act in a way that shows we actually care.

We all deserve to live our lives without fear of active shooters in malls, on streets, at stores, or anywhere. ✌🏻

https://twitter.com/amycourts/status/1555623656906231809?s=20&t=E1cS-3jspeXmo09ltgKQKg

God! I think the worst part, still, was seeing that rush of people, hearing the screams, thinking, “okay, this is happening.” And looking at my family, at my 11yo baby, and saying, “Run. Now.”

You can’t know — until you know — how that lands in your body. It’s…unreal.