Another day, another mass shooting. Enough!
Most of us awoke yesterday morning to the news that a gunman on an upper floor of a Las Vegas hotel unleashed a barrage of bullets on an outdoor country music festival across the street, killing more than 50 people and injuring at least 500 others. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Jason Aldean was onstage, singing “When She Says Baby,” when the sound of gunfire sent some 22,000 panicked concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival running for their lives.
This shooting came more than four months after a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people.
There but for the grace of God go you and I. This could have happened to any of us who get such pleasure from watching musicians perform live. A concert is supposed to be an exhilarating, inspirational, fun experience. This was a bloodbath.
Sadly, the thought that I might not make it home safely from a concert has crossed my mind since almost 90 people were killed by gunmen at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal in 2015. It’s no coincidence that my wife gives me an extra-long hug whenever I’m going to a concert these days. You just never know.
Used to be my biggest fear was fire. Wish I had a buck for every time I thought “I hope this place doesn’t catch fire” as I climbed the narrow steps to the second-floor music room at the old House of Blues in Cambridge or descended into basement clubs with limited egress.
Security, of course, is tight at all concerts these days. Even the Newport Folk Festival, a love-and-peace weekend if ever there was one, has by necessity added muscle and strict rules about what can and can’t be brought onto the concert grounds. Same at Tanglewood.
When I attended my first big time concert — The Kinks, April 10, 1974 at the Music Hall — a ticket-taker ripped in half the pass that gained me entrance. There was no security as you walked in back then. No pat-downs. No waving of wands. No searching of handbags. Altamont five years earlier was an aberration.
That’s the way it was for years and years. I miss those young and innocent days. Hundreds of shows at Harbor Lights, Great Woods, the Garden, the Centrum, the Paradise, Somerville Theatre, Club Passim, all the Lansdowne Street venues and small clubs throughout New England: there was never an issue.
The first time I noticed entrance security — at a 1982 Elvis Costello show in Bridgeport, Conn. — it was shocking. A 1986 Bob Dylan/Tom Petty show at Great Woods was the first time I recall being checked locally, though I suspect there was more concern about booze and pot being smuggled in than a gun or knife.
The most severe security procedure was at a Yusuf/Cat Stevens show three years ago at the Wang. Granted, the performer had a “controversial” past, but getting into the theater was like going through TSA interrogation at Logan. There were metal detectors. Licenses had to be shown by everyone, and the name on the Ticketmaster receipt had to match the name on the license. If it didn’t, you didn’t get in. It didn’t bother me. I felt safe.
This gun violence has to stop. It matters less what would prompt a 64-year-old retired accountant to orchestrate such a heinous act, compared to how the alleged shooter came to legally possess such an arsenal of high-powered guns that are clearly meant for use in war.
It’s all about the guns. Yeah, I know what the second amendment guarantees (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”). It says nothing about automatic weapons and rejiggered rifles. America is broken, and I fear it’ll never get better. There are just too many damn guns on the street. Those who think “if everyone had a gun we’d be a lot safer” are fools.
My niece and nephew grew up in Newtown, Conn. Their lives were changed forever; their innocence compromised by a mad gunman who went berserk in a school. She got a little ribbon tattoo on her finger to pay tribute.
If you recall, there was a huge public outcry after that 2012 Sandy Hook attack. Not a damn thing changed. Let’s face it, it never will. If children being murdered doesn’t instigate change, the killing of a few dozen country music fans isn’t going to do the trick.
We always say “our prayers and thoughts go out to the victims and their families.” It’s become a hollow homily. We say it so often it’s merely a rote response at this point.
I saw Jason Aldean at Fenway a couple of summers ago. His show was a blast. Everyone was drinking beer, singing along and having a grand old time. The Las Vegas massacre had nothing to do with the music or who was on stage. We’ll likely never know the reason. If news reports are to be believed, it was a well-conceived plot carried out by man consumed by anger and rage.
It’s time America faces the music. The big guns gotta go. To paraphrase Pete Seeger: There’s a time for love, no time for hate/A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.
