Las Vegas shootings bring up the same unanswered questions againDate: 10/5/2017
I was feeling pretty good on Monday morning. I knew what stories I had to write – I love having a plan – the weather was beautifully seasonal for October and I had had a constructive weekend.
Then I turned on the radio. As is my habit driving in to work, I listened to Bax and O’Brien and heard John O’Brien soberly read a story about the shooting in Las Vegas. All of the initially good feelings I had about Monday faded away.
It is increasingly difficult for me to accept the latest event in mindless violence without asking the same questions that I’ve asked the last time something horrendous happened: When will this stop? How can we change the level of violence in this country? Can we begin to discuss the elements that motivate such acts? Or is this the new normal?
The last question is the one that frightens me the most. Is this the way we are going to be as a nation?
What I expect out of the next few days will be the usual reactions from politicians, radio talk show hosts, TV pundits and my Facebook friends. There will be people calling for a greater emphasis on mental health screening and awareness to try to prevent such acts. There will be people calling for greater gun control.
There will also be people saying more of us should be carrying guns as a way to stop such violence. And there will be number of people who will have no reaction.
Offering prayers to the people in Las Vegas seemed to be a popular theme on my Facebook timeline this morning and I suppose if you’re religious that is a fine thing to do. It’s clear, though, whatever deity to who you pray is telling us we have to solve this mess for ourselves, though. So far, we’ve done a pretty bad job.
President Donald Trump tweeted out, “My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!”
I suppose that is wonderful for the president to say, but it doesn’t begin to address the issues. Sympathy and support is an immediate kind of reaction from elected officials, but the real issues are far more difficult to address.
What would you do if you had the ability to address this problem? How do we prevent someone from taking a gun and shooting as many people as they could for reasons that are not apparent to anybody other than the killer?
I will add a final observation: if everyone attending that country music concert in Las Vegas had been packing, it wouldn’t have mattered. Their weapons would have been useless against someone who was high above in a strategic position firing at will. In my humble opinion, more guns are not the answer.
Question asked and answered
In my last column I asked a question about the announcement of MGM’s plans to build a casino in Bridgeport, CT, within the 100-mile radius that defines the market area for MGM Springfield.
As a Springfield resident and homeowner, naturally I was concerned. I live just a little mile away from the casino site and I know its success will affect – hopefully positively – my home’s value. I have a selfish interest in seeing MGM Springfield live up to its potential.
I took the opportunity on Sept. 27 to ask that question to Mike Mathis and president and COO of MGM Springfield. In terms of a negative reaction to Springfield, he said, “No, not at all.”
Mathis said a Bridgeport casino – a project if approved would take years to see its completion – would be aimed directly at the New York City market, a market currently serviced by Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and to a far lesser extent the struggling gaming houses in Atlantic City, NJ.
Putting a casino there is part of the east coast expansion of MGM, as is the company’s National Harbor casino that opened recently.
Mathis believes having a casino in Bridgeport would provide the company “the opportunity to cross market” and that it is far enough away to prevent “cannibalizing” the MGM Springfield market.
There are many steps before a Bridgeport casino would ever become real, not the least of which would be an act of the Connecticut Legislature to authorize such a business. One could debate the likelihood of that, in light of the Nutmeg State’s efforts to get a casino placed at the former Showcase Cinemas site in East Windsor, might be slender.
It’s all a chess game, isn’t it?
|
