They say irony is dead now. Also: virtue, democracy, hope.
But irony drapes the Uvalde massacre with the community’s anguished observation that the shooter was finally stopped by border patrol officers. The fear and mistrust of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. border patrol and local police in immigrant communities is well documented. In Uvalde, it took a paramilitary border patrol unit to stop what might have gone on for hours.
No, irony isn’t dead. This is America, where we watch music videos about massacres, read poems about massacres, and the president finally visits the borderlands because of a massacre.
In communities such as San Jose, police audits reveal ongoing fears of bias, improper use of force and discrimination. A review of five California police departments by the State Auditor found multiple examples of troubling behavior that included social media posts and conversations between officers that mocked transgender people, women, Latinos, Black people and immigrants. And a community report from San Jose’s Reimagining Public Safety Community Advisory Committee states Black adults are 6.6 times more likely and Latino adults 2.2 times more likely to be given a local infraction by SJPD than white adults.
And in Uvalde? Same as it ever was, as recorded in oral histories from Uvalde’s elders, even as Robb Elementary School parents were witnessing the massacre of their children. Parents were tasered. One woman was handcuffed because she protested a bit too loudly to officers on the scene. But she performed her own miracle, got unhandcuffed, ran into the school and saved her son while authorities fumbled for a key to unlock a door, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the day after the shooting, the Office of Homeland Security issued a press release to remind the public that school sites are considered protected areas.
This week, The Mercury News published an in-depth report on the rise of teen deaths from guns. This follows insights on re-building community trust from the city’s Reimagining Public Safety committee. And the mayor’s office illuminated the impact of regulating gun ownership. San Jose is doing the work. Fact-based discernment dismantles the rhetoric of futility and fear. It insists we claim the alternatives hope imagines.
Let’s understand the impact of the statistics provided by the mayor’s office in his announcement of a gun reform ordinance following the VTA Massacre and California’s gun reform efforts. Regulation can:
• Save hundreds of lives — more than 200 people in San Jose annually.
• Save California taxpayers billions in costs for gunshot-related medical treatment, police response, ambulance transport, etc.
• Save millions — up to $8 million annually — in emergency services for gun-related violence.
• Save $2,199 for each emergency response call to the police department for shooting incidents, potentially $7.8 million annually. That’s almost $500 in savings back to each San Jose household for costs incurred to respond to gun violence.
• Substantially reduce California’s rate of gun deaths — according to data published by the National Center for Health Statistics as reported by the LA Times — by 10% since 2005, while the national rate has climbed.
As I write this 11 school shootings occurred during the last week, according to the Washington Post. It’s hard to believe that the number of averted shootings far outnumbers completed attacks. I remember Lincoln’s consolation to another mother: “How weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.”
But I also remember Bobby Kennedy at Indianapolis and his call to action: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. To act for democracy withvirtue and hope. To stop the gun massacres.
Marcela Davison Avilés is managing partner of TomKat MeDiA and founder of Chapultepec Group.
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