The Batman massacre in Denver: Seeing Aurora, thinking Oikos

Remember Katleen Ping? Ping came to mind during last weekend’s midnight madness in Denver.

Ping, you’ll recall was one of the Oikos 7, my term for the victims in the deadly massacre at Oakland’s Oikos University earlier this year.

An immigrant from the Philippines, Ping worked at Oikos as the receptionist. She lived with her parents and siblings, and had a four-year old son.

Ping’s husband was still in the Philippines awaiting to be reunited, and then a shooter, One L. Goh came into their lives.

On the national scene, there’s not much mention of Goh, Oikos, let alone Katleen Ping. For a few weeks in April, they had their time in the media. But now they’ve faded.

There’s no call for justice for victims like Ping. No call for Asian American mental health for victim’s like the shooter Goh. No calls for sane gun control.

Hey, he only killed seven.

That seems to be the way it works in America.

But now we have the midnight madness in Aurora, and 12 dead in a public movie theatre. It’s not a small private university run by a Korean church, primarily focused on immigrants. The victims, are also primarily white, as is the shooter. Will America now move forward to address the lax gun laws that will allow anyone to amass a killing arsenal without a background check?

Seeing ‘The Joker’ James Holmes

That was my hope when I saw the alleged shooter for the first time, James Holmes.

With his orange-red hair and twitchy facial expressions, Holmes could be the new poster boy for gun-control in America.

How could you not look at him and be overcome with feelings of empathy for the victims, as well as anger on their behalf? My initial feeling was strong.

This, I thought, was the emotion we need as a country to end the stranglehold of the National Rifle Association(NRA) on any sane approach to guns in America.

That’s what I thought.

But so far, his discussion has been on the death penalty for Holmes, which is irrelevant. Killing Holmes punishes him, but doesn’t solve the problem.

It doesn’t even relieve any of the pain of the tragic event.

In fact, the push for the death penalty comes from the exact same intellectual place that produces the crazy gun logic of the NRA.

Gun logic? It’s the logic that would dare to suggest that MORE GUNS is really the answer.

After it hijacked the 2nd Amendment, the NRA really believes that only an armed public could save us from ourselves in Aurora and makes us free.

By the gun lobby’s logic, there should have been someone packing heat in that theatre to save us from Holmes. But there wasn’t. A few military vets were there to shield the innocent and serve as heroes. They weren’t armed.

Instead of arguing for any kind of sane control on gun proliferation and ownership, you can bet the NRA will be using the tragic incident to advocate INCREASING the sale and accessibility of guns. What could be better to make us all feel safer? To them, guns are always the answer.

It’s the kind of deranged logic that continues to stifle common sense approaches to gun violence in this country. And after yet another senseless massacre of innocent people, how many wakeup calls do we need?

Apparently, more.

Fade away?

We are still in the grief/horror/joy stage, mourning for victims, praising heroes, celebrating survivors. The politicians are there with rhetoric, but no real calls to action.

Even President Obama flew in to Colorado to console. But part of me wonders if he would have been there if it weren’t such a hotly contested swing state.

After talking to victims’ families, the president said he tried “to assure them that although the perpetrator of this evil act has received a lot of attention over the last couple of days, that attention will fade away.”

The last few words jarred me: “Fade away?”

Let’s hope not.

James Holmes is the best chance in America to debunk the NRA’s stupid gun logic which has stymied common sense solutions to America’s excessive gun violence.

Seeing him again and again, should be our wake up call. Something needs to be done to stop the senseless killing that comes from the unchecked proliferation of guns.

And if seeing Holmes over and over doesn’t work to create a public outcry, just remember Katleen Ping.

(Updates at www.amok.com)