BY DAN RATHER AND TEAM STEADY
Brown University students hold a vigil for fellow students killed in a mass shooting on campus. Credit: Getty Images
Leaders of great nations rise to the occasion. Leaders of great nations commiserate with their citizens after a tragedy, promising to do what they can to help and change what can be changed, in the hope that victims and their families will feel a recognition of their pain and suffering.
Most of our leaders have become deft at providing some sense of comfort while trying to explain gun violence, mainly because they’ve had so much practice. And when they spoke of tragedy, it felt genuine. That is no longer true.
Over the weekend, two senseless shootings were separated by 10,000 miles. During both, innocent people were murdered, but the reaction of the countries’ leaders was as far apart as the deadly incidents.
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
On Saturday afternoon, a man gained access to an engineering building at Brown University and opened fire on a group of students reviewing for an upcoming exam. According to people in the first-floor classroom, the gunman entered wearing a face mask and carrying a rifle, yelled something and started shooting students arrayed in the stadium-style seating. Two students were killed; nine were injured.
The shooter then left the building, and two cameras captured grainy images of him walking away.
A shelter-in-place order went out to all students from the school, including this horrifying line: “Remember: RUN, if you are in the affected location, evacuate safely if you can; HIDE, if evacuation is not possible, take cover; FIGHT, as a last resort, take action to protect yourself.”
Early Sunday morning, law enforcement announced that they had a suspect in custody and the manhunt had ended. But by that evening he had been released and the hunt for the perpetrator resumed. As of this writing, he remains at large.
The stunning reversal was made more so by bumbling FBI Director, Kash Patel. Already on thin ice with the administration, Patel prematurely gave his agency a digital “attaboy” for finding the alleged suspect. Before he was released, Patel boasted on social media that the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team had used “critical geolocation capabilities” to find and detain the man in a nearby town.
You might recall Patel had a similar too-early social media celebration when he posted, “subject for the horrific shooting… is now in custody,” just hours after Charlie Kirk had been shot. No one was in custody. More than 24-hours later, the suspect’s father turned him in.
Two weeks ago, a scathing 115-page report highly critical of Patel was leaked to The New York Post. The report, prepared for several congressional committees, is based on accounts from 24 retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts. It called the FBI a “rudderless ship,” and said that Patel is “in over his head” overseeing a “chronically under-performing” agency.
Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia
On the other side of the world, just 11 hours later, a deadly mass shooting unfolded on a beach in Australia. As hundreds gathered to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, two men positioned themselves on an elevated footbridge above the beachside party. Then they opened fire on the crowd.
One victim described the scene as unrelenting. “It just didn’t stop. We were so targeted in that little space. We were like sitting ducks.” A nurse whose apartment looks out onto the footbridge said, “They had a ridiculous amount of ammunition and multiple guns.”
Fifteen people were killed, aged 10 to 87. One of the victims was a Holocaust survivor who used his body to shield his wife from the bullets. Twenty-seven people were injured.
Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, said they are treating the incident as an antisemitic terrorist attack. He said the suspects were “driven by ideology.” Two flags of the militant group, the Islamic State, were found in their car.
Those suspects were a father and son. The father was killed at the scene. The son, who was tackled and disarmed by a good Samaritan, is in critical condition.
The mass shooting was only the second in Australia in almost 30 years. After a 1996 attack in Tasmania, Australia tightened its already strict gun laws.
After the Sunday shooting Albanese said, “The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws … People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity.” His proposal could include limiting the number and type of firearms an individual can own.
Donald Trump’s reaction to the Brown University shooting was not quite as strong. “All we can do right now is pray,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
According to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, Trump has actually made the country demonstrably less safe. “Over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country,” Murphy told CNN.
The president restored gun rights to felons, closed the White House office of gun violence protection, and canceled funding for mental health and community anti-gun violence programs.
Australia, which has some of the world’s strictest gun control measures, had two mass shootings in almost three decades. The United States, with some of the least restrictive gun laws, has had hundreds, perhaps even thousands (depending on the reporting organization and the criteria they use), in the same time period.
We can’t give you an exact number because there is no consensus on the definition of “mass shooting.” Conveniently, if there is no consensus, there can be no official count. Regardless of the number, if you want to prevent mass killings, it is clear that the only way to do so is to control who can own guns.
And if you think for a second that new gun laws will be proposed in this country after Saturday’s shooting, let alone passed into law, think again. We have a three-word phrase that has benignly become the go-to from anti-gun control politicians, “thoughts and prayers” — which has as much chance of making things better as saying “good luck.”
NYA Thanks Dan Rather and Team Steady!