I live in Omaha.
No, I didn’t see the shooting at the Westroads Mall. I don’t shop that far west, since I live in what is laughingly called “Central Omaha.”
And yes, it was a tragedy, and I will never make light of any such tragedy. So this is the only toon I will publish on the subject.
But I do want to take this opportunity to vent about the hypocrisy of the media. The nine people who died on Wednesday got international attention. But that was a paltry figure compared to the rest of 2007 in Omaha. In July alone, we averaged a shooting per DAY. I have personally called 911 upon hearing gunshots from a vehicle speeding right by my house.
And how many of these news stories made national press?
Not bloody many. Because, you see, this incident happened in a “nice” part of town. Not like in that awful downtown area, where, you know, all the brown people live.
And it really cheeses me off to see Fox News (and their clones) complaining that the Mall was a “gun-free” zone. Seriously. You see, we have a concealed-carry law here in Nebraska, but business owners are allowed to set policy that they don’t allow weapons on their property.
Now, I’ll admit that you’d have to be a pretty stupid business owner to publicly advertise that there are no guns in your store, but that’s the way the law was written.
All the same, every witness interviewed has repeated that there was no time to react before the kid finished his shooting spree and turned his weapon on himself. I emphasize – this was the equivalent of a hit-and-run. A drive-by in broad daylight. Throw in a couple-dozen vigilantes and we’d have had a full-scale Tombstone on our hands, with at least twice the death toll.
I guess I’m not really going anywhere with this, but I had to get it out. We have real problems in this city – and in every city – that get ignored until they start affecting the beautiful people. Robert Hawkins was an apt metaphor – he had a treatable mental condition that should have been caught before it came to this head. So does Omaha. So does the nation.