I can sympathize, but I’ve never had a kid and it’s not the same. I grew close to many Columbine victims, but I’ve never experienced the fear of a parent in Topeka or Chicago sending his kid to school after the devastation in Colorado or Connecticut. The gunman shot nearly one-third of them, a staggering ratio-in 17 years writing about mass shootings, past and present, I can’t recall a single percentage that high.
It was Latin night at the Pulse club in Orlando Saturday, and an estimated 320 people were still going at it around 2 a.m. If someone were shooting on the next level or next room, how would anyone even know? The music is often so loud that you have to put your mouth right up to a buddy’s ear to say something, and partygoers often resort to bits of improvised bar sign language. Most big clubs have several rooms, often several floors, and hundreds of people or more packed into tight little spaces on Saturday night, elbow to elbow, where it can take five minutes to squeeze your way to the bathrooms or the bar 30 feet away. We advertise where to find us now, all rounded up together in a remarkably vulnerable space.
