LAX Shooting, Garden State NJ Shooting, Denver School Gunmen.
Why?
Two mass shooting incidents, and one that could have been that had students been in the school at the time, leave one question: why is this happening?
At LAX, a 23-year-old man named Paul Ciancia went to target TSA Agents and in the process wounded three, and killed George Hernandez, a three-year veteran TSA agent who lived in Los Angeles.
In Garden State New Jersey, a gunman named Richard Shoop, first thought to be with five other gunmen, acted alone. Fortunately, Mr. Shoop killed no one, but the reports are that he was upset about something and “wasn’t himself” over the past few days.
So, at 9:20 pm, as the stores at the Garden State NJ Mall were closing, Shoop put on body armor, armed himself with military-style weapons, and came out blasting security cameras in the mall. Eventually, at 3:20 am, Shoop was found dead, and the report was he killed himself.
Rabbi Shmuley, the so-called ‘most famous Rabbi in America’ was at the mall last night, and took to Facebook and Twitter to report what was going on @RabbiShmuley. Here are some of his Twitter tweets:
Shooter in the garden state mall NJ. We were there. Terrifying and not yet over. Pray for the people inside
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) November 5, 2013
Took about 15 min for us to see any police activity in mall. Have no idea if they have apprehended shooter. Still have people inside. Pray!
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) November 5, 2013
We're outside the mall awaiting people we know to emerge. Please pray for the people inside. Gunman not apprehended
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) November 5, 2013
Police everywhere. Why can they not find the gunman? I have 3 kids with me. We're outside awaiting word of the people we know inside.
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) November 5, 2013
Rabbi Shmuley issued a lot more Twitter tweets, and then wrote a Facebook account. Here’s a shortened version of it:
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
I have just finished buying electronics at Best Buy at the Garden State Mall in New Jersey. I have our three young children with me, ages twelve, seven, and five. It is about 9:10pm. I have brought the kids with me because, due to the statewide elections the following day, they have no school.
My wife and fifteen-year-old daughter are in the mall proper. Since it closes at 9:30pm, I call Debbie and tell her I will walk the kids into the mall’s main building and meet her.
Best Buy is detached from the mall. We walk across the parking lot and into the entrance. There is a carousel in front of us and I decide I should put the kids on it until the mall closes.
Suddenly tens of people start running toward us screaming “There’s a shooter. SHOOTER. Run. Get out.” There is no need to think. I am not in shock but clear-headed. There have been so many shootings lately in America that I know exactly what this is. A crazy person is on a shooting rampage in a mall and this time we are not watching it on TV, we are not reading about it on the net. We are at the center of it.
I take the three kids by the hands and make an immediate about face. We begin to run. The kids are in utter panic, absorbing what is happening. They are not crying. Yet. We make it to the parking lot and start running toward our car. I stop outside the car. I dial my wife whom I had spoken to just five minutes earlier. The call goes straight to voice mail. I call my daughter. Straight to voice mail. I am gripped by fear and terror that have I have rarely felt in my entire life. I call again, both numbers. Straight to voice mail. I am shaking. Why won’t they answer? My God, my God, why won’t they answer? I pray to my Creator and beg Him for mercy. “This is my wife. This is my child. Please protect them.” Why won’t they answer?
I put the kids in the car. I am outside on the phone. I call again. Mercy of mercies, my wife answers. She is trembling as she speaks. “There’s a shooter, Shmuley, right outside a store we’re in. The salesperson saw him. He was carrying an AK-47, holding it in the air. We heard about 6 shots. We’re terrified. Where are you? Get out. Get out of the mall. Are the kids OK?”
And now again I am traumatized by a shooting.
How many more will die before America finally wakes up?
That’s the question.
What’s the connection?
It’s guns. And it’s the fact that these two men, Paul Ciancia and Robert Shoop, were both in their early 20s. Moreover, neither had previous criminal records.
The problem is guns and also lack of well-paying jobs. Until the second decade of the 2000s, it was possible to land a low-skilled, well-paying job. But the continued expanse of manufacturing to cheap-labor countries combined with our collective lack of economic planning to counter this process has led us to this point.
We have to take guns off the streets, no question. But we also have to enact an economic plan even larger than the one President Obama put into place to stem economic recovery after the crash. Arguably, the Economic Stimulus was just that – it did the job, but it did not stop the flow of manufacturing jobs outside America. It wasn’t designed to do that.
Stay tuned.