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Woody Woodburn
400 Roosevelt Court
Ventura, CA 93003
T.O. Latest to Become Anytown USA
“It won’t happen here,” used to be a common refrain when an unthinkable mass shooting occurred.
Such thoughts belong to nostalgic days. Mass shootings in America are no longer unthinkable; they are as commonplace as a sunrise.
That is barely an exaggeration, for already this year – according to the Gun Violence Archive – there have been 307 mass shootings in the U.S. Meanwhile, as I write this, we are 312 days into 2018.
Since I file my column on Thursday mornings, it is not unthinkable that the 307 total will have risen higher by the time you read this. In fact, statistically, that is highly likely.
The 307th mass shooting of 2018 happened in Zip Code 91361. Thousand Oaks. Inside the popular Borderline Bar & Grill. In other words, “it happened here.”
How could a gunman kill 12 people in a restaurant located in a city that is annually ranked one of the safest cities in the nation according to crime rate per capita?
A better question is, how could anyone expect any city to be immune from such mayhem?
Indeed, the next mass-shooting rampage – and, sadly, there will be a next one, and a next, ad nauseam – can happen Anywhere USA.
Just two weeks ago, on Oct. 27, it happened in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, when 11 people were killed inside the Tree of Life synagogue.
It happened in Santa Fe, Texas, when 10 high school students were killed this past May 18.
It happened in Parkland, Florida, this past Valentine’s Day, when 17 were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Those 2018 shootings above are not an aberration. In recent years, it happened at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; in a gay nightclub in Orlando; at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas; in a movie theater in Colorado; in front of a supermarket in Tucson; in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Newtown, old towns, every town. The specific place changes, the number of victims varies, but the bullets constantly keep flying, keeping killing, keep injuring, keep shattering communities.
The faces of the victims change and yet they also remain the same: faces of young lives that will never fulfill their dreams; faces of Girl Scouts and teenage girls-next-door; faces of Little League boys and new fathers; faces of mothers who will never see their sons and daughters graduate from high school or college, not see them marry, not see their future grandchildren born; faces of friends and co-workers and neighbors.
And faces of heroes, like Ventura Police Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran on the force who rushed towards danger inside the Borderline Bar & Grill, took incoming fire, took a fatal bullet, his selfless brave action saving countless lives at the cost of his own at age 54.
There can be no borderline on this issue: we MUST as a nation take action against gun violence. And assault-type rifles are not the only scourge. The Borderline madman used a single .45-caliber handgun, legally purchased, but outfitted with an extended magazine.
Following the Las Vegas Shooting, I wrote: “If this—59 dead, 527 wounded, by one civilian—is what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment, they were idiots. I do not believe our Founding Fathers were idiots. I believe we Americans are.”
Thirteen dead and 21 injured, on a weekday night, in a local bar and grill, in one of our nation’s safest cities, proves our idiocy continues. If you think it can’t happen where you live, think again.
It happened here.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
- Personalized signed copies are available at WoodyWoodburn.com