Baseball’s play in which an error is made is in part defined by the unanswered. If “we’ll never know” is within the judgment, then most likely an error is being scored.
The game’s Midsummer Classic, the All-Star Game, was turned into a political football by Commissioner Rob Manfred in early April. On Friday when four people were arrested by what police in Colorado describe as the possibility of another “Las Vegas shooting,” more politics got heaved onto the pile.
What we’ve learned thus far is a maid at a hotel near the ballpark that will host Tuesday’s All-Star Game tipped off authorities. They found 16 long guns, body armor, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in a room with a balcony overlooking Denver’s downtown — a somber reminder to the Mandalay Bay shooting of 2017 that killed 59 and injured more than 500 just off the Strip in Vegas.
Those things should never be found in a hotel. That they were in one with proximity to so many people who would be going to events in the weekend and days leading up to the big game is even more stupefying.
We’ll never know what might have happened — the four could say just about anything having been caught. The maid is being hailed as a hero, and there’s a good argument to be made for that.
What should be happening in the discussion afterward is a look at people. What will happen is chatter on topics people act out on, be it legislation, guns, mental illness, or something else.
In other words, not much different than what is normally experienced. And “normally” is certainly the scary word here.
Like an error in baseball, there’s a varied definition to the eye of the beholder for mass shootings. Generally speaking, four dead or injured in a single incident will register with most statistical analysis; some say four dead plus more injured.
Regardless, most all agree that mass shootings rose after an initial lapse when COVID-19 struck the country early in 2020. And this calendar year, the number of mass shootings is already well ahead of the 2019 pre-pandemic pace.
Not good. And, in our view, not directly attributable toward any particular reason. They are varied.
Ultimately, no matter where we land with our thoughts on the subject, a unified position is the acts planned or actually carried out are done so by bad people.
Reasoning that laws would prevent these acts is hopeful thinking. Sometimes yes, but more often, bad people with bad intentions are not going to be shackled by the laws of our land.
Mental illness worries for those involved in such incidents are justified. But again, that won’t fully or even significantly reduce the violence.
We need to be talking about people. We need to be talking about how people treat each other, how they interact, what they’ve learned and where, and what they do with that knowledge.
Our country was founded on unwavering principles. God, family and country — in some order for more of them than not — were spurring on the Founding Fathers and their countrymen.
As a nation, over time, we’ve lost a lot from those unifying bonds. We, the people, need them as much now as ever before.
And for more than topics like gun violence.
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