When Will It Stop?

      The mass-violence incident in my hometown of New Orleans on Jan. 1 took me back to November 1977 and another mass-violence incident in the city. On the morning of Nov. 7, a man named Carlos Poree shot his estranged wife and her father and went on to shoot eight more people in the French Quarter and Central Business District.

      My father was the ninth person shot.

      I came home from school that afternoon to learn that my father had been shot in the neck while walking to a restaurant for lunch. While I had been gabbing with my girlfriends in my high school cafeteria, my father was lying on a sidewalk, receiving last rites from a priest who happened to be in the area—the first of three last rites he’d receive over the next 48 hours.

      I went through the rest of my school day not knowing my father was in surgery, doctors trying to extract the bullet that had lodged in his spinal cord.

      Of the 10 people shot that day, one person died, and most of the others sustained serious injuries. My father fought for his life for three days after the shooting. He stabilized eventually and lived for another three and a half years as a quadriplegic. Carlos Poree was found not guilty by reason of insanity and lived out his days at a state mental hospital in rural Louisiana.

      Unlike now, in the 1970s we were not as desensitized to these types of violent events. The shooting of 10 people, most of whom didn’t know the gunman, was shocking. Over our lifetimes, we’ve seen a significant increase in violence, particularly mass shootings, in the U.S. We’ve become accustomed to these events; most of them don’t even make the headlines anymore. And, certainly, we know by now that our leaders will not do anything about it.

      The year 2024 was yet another record-breaking year of mass shootings: according to the Gun Violence Archive, with 503 mass shootings (incidents in which four or more people are injured or killed due to firearm-related violence) reported. Most of these incidents had fewer than 10 victims. Already, as of Jan. 4, this year, GVA reported five mass shootings.

      How many of these have you heard about?

      I no longer feel hopeful that we can stop this madness, but when I hear about these incidents, I do try to stop and reflect on the victims’ families. I imagine them wondering, as I did in 1977, how things may have been different if only their loved one had not been in that place at that time.

      I imagine them shaking their heads in wonder at the confluence of events or decisions that led to the tragedy. I imagine them wondering when it will stop, when will we all have had enough?