The Events of the Weekend

As you probably already know, there was a shooting in Allen, Texas this weekend. It was about 15 minutes from my home in McKinney at an outlet mall I’ve been known to frequent when I have little else to do and money burning a hole in my pocket, which is almost never. At any rate, I’ve been there, I know where the H&M is, and it is an awful thing to have something like this happen so close to home.

At 3:30 Saturday afternoon, I was in Carrollton at our annual Westie Rescue of North Texas Ice Cream Social. At the time people were dying, I was selling T-shrts, handing out pup cups to Westies and chatting up their owners.

My mom texted me. My brother texted me. My friends texted me. “I’m all right,” I said, over and over.

When I woke up this morning, I saw that several of my friends had marked themselves “Safe” on Facebook. Facebook wanted to know if I was safe as well. I didn’t respond, because it seemed a joke to mark myself safe when I wasn’t there in the first place. I have a friend who lives 1/2 mile from the outlet mall, and she marked herself safe, however. I am glad.

There’s a picture of the assailant going around on Twitter — dead, shot through the head, sprawled on the sidewalk, blood pooling. I did not feel bad at all when I saw that picture. I’m a little appalled that I don’t feel bad, but I don’t.

I don’t want to get into the gun control debate. I am a big fan of the Second Amendment, I’ll say that. But we’ve got a problem in the United States that is bigger than we are. We’ve got a lot of problems that won’t be solved until Jesus comes back, and I have no answer other than that. I’m praying for those who experienced this tragedy first hand, the first responders and those who are shaken by a mass shooting, once again.

This is what I think after this weekend.