Rabbit Season

 Ten people were killed in what might be described as the fifth mass shooting this year. If you were using the lunar calendar, it would have been the first of the Year of the Rabbit. On Saturday night, at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California, a gunman opened fire. Ten died, ten more were injured. The suspect got away and was thought to have popped up in another dance hall twenty minutes later where onlookers were able to wrestle away his gun before he fled. 

So it continues. What many had hoped were fireworks connected with the festivities turned out to be gunfire. Again. Ten more dead while America's love affair with guns and ammo goes on. And on.

Law enforcement officials were not forthcoming with a suspected motive. As if this were easily acquired or understood, making sense of this tragedy would still be nearly impossible. Was it a hate crime? I am willing to go out on a limb here once again and suggest that shooting anyone with a gun would constitute a hate crime. Witnesses at the Star Ballroom said that the gunman was an Asian man. This description was echoed by those at the second dance hall. 

This same description was used by law enforcement to describe the driver found in a white van Sunday morning. Dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. All the speculation that will now swarm and fester around this community that finds itself on a list along with Uvalde, Colorado Springs, and so on and so on. This quiet community just east of downtown Los Angeles will be the focal point for media, the debate about gun control, and all the associated furor and sadness. 

A twelve hour span of time that brought the celebration of a new year right back to memories of all the years before. By now, things should be different.