One of the saddest and weirdest things to come out of the Aurora Shooting so far is that one young woman who lost her life had recently narrowly avoided being killed in a mall shooting in Toronto while she was on vacation. She wrote about it pseudonymously on her blog on June 5th. She had gone to a mall in Toronto to satisfy a craving for sushi but she changed her mind once there and got a hamburger. It was a decision that might have saved her life.
Knowing that she died in a mall shooting six weeks later is haunting considering the conclusion to her piece:
I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.
I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given.
I feel like I am overreacting about what I experienced. But I can’t help but be thankful for whatever caused me to make the choices that I made that day. My mind keeps replaying what I saw over in my head. I hope the victims make a full recovery. I wish I could shake this odd feeling from my chest. The feeling that’s reminding me how blessed I am. The same feeling that made me leave the Eaton Center. The feeling that may have potentially saved my life.
Her name was Jessica Ghawi, and she was only 24 years-old. She aspired to be a sportscaster. She’s only one of dozens of victims of last night’s shooting spree, but her story is eerie and compelling. Read her account of the Toronto shooting.
I rushed through my dinner. I found out after seeing a map of the scene, that minutes later a man was standing in the same spot I just ate at and opened fire in the food court full of people. Had I had sushi, I would’ve been in the same place where one of the victims was found.
My receipt shows my purchase was made at 6:20 pm. After that purchase I said I felt funny. It wasn’t the kind of funny you feel after spending money you know you shouldn’t have spent. It was almost a panicky feeling that left my chest feeling like something was missing. A feeling that was overwhelming enough to lead me to head outside in the rain to get fresh air instead of continuing back into the food court to go shopping at SportChek. The gunshots rung out at 6:23. Had I not gone outside, I would’ve been in the midst of gunfire.
What can you say about such a twist of fate?
She was a friend of a guy I know and he is having a rough morning. This is what he shared about her on Facebook.
Here is her twitter
https:/twitter.com/JessicaRedfield
Compilation of her writings
http://bustedcoverage.com/author/jessicaredfield/
Her Brother is updating his blog on the tragedy and has a description of what happened his sister and her friend.
http://www.jordanghawi.com/denver-theatre-shooting-jessica-ghawi/
His twitter
https:
/twitter.com/JordanGhawi
I’ve never seen any of the Final Destination movies but yeah, this is pretty creepy.
How sad! She sounded like a very special person, introspective and grateful for her second chance at life. It’s a real shame that she died in this terrible event. It makes my heart ache for her family and friends.
This is outrageous!
Gun Control? Are you fu–ing kidding?
If my wife had been in that theater (I stopped carrying my concealed weapon years ago out of inconvenience)…that motherfucker would be dead, with less dead innocent civilians!
Why do you trust Government? They cannot take care of you…you must take care of yourself…
I hate this shit…this is an argument for more guns in the hands of law-adiding citizens, not less…this fu–ing nut job would have gotten the gun anyway!…
Same thing in the mall in Toronto…only a well-armed populace can stop these insane motherfuckers…
I didn’t even mention gun control.
This is an ignorant comment.
How asinine! A dark theater, with smoke (possibly tear gas), hundreds of people running in panic, a mad man in protective gear.
And then three or four or ten vigilantes firing away at shadows. What would the total death toll be then?
Wrong!!! To obtain a concealed carry permit, you go through extensive training to train your reflexes to anticipate crazy motherfuckers…the insane m-fers don’t anticipate someone fighting back…that motherfucker would be dead tonight if someone had a concealed weapon through proper training…
Oh, baloney.
I got my concealed-carry permit in Massachusetts, a state with some of the most restrictive gun-control laws in the country. There was no “extensive training to train your reflexes to anticipate crazy motherfuckers” — just a five-hour class on everything from the parts of a gun to how to load it to safety to types of firearms to…. well, it was an excellent overview course — and an NRA-devised course, taught by an NRA-accredited instructor, by the way — but there wasn’t a bit of live-fire training required.
Being a sensible type, I hired the instructor for a couple of live-fire training courses after my concealed-carry permit arrived and I bought my first handgun. He was a very good teacher of the mechanics of shooting, but there was none of this “train your reflexes” stuff you’re babbling about. What you’re talking about is the kind of training police and military would get — and that is NOT required background for getting a concealed-carry permit.
Sorry, but You. Are. Wrong.
You should have gotten it in Arizona…live target practice…24 hour course…you have to watch a big movie screen and aim your gun at the appropriate time (and shooot!)…if you shoot an innocent…you lose!
Did you shoot at the movie screen, with all sorts of shit going on? Good guys mixed in with bad guys…and if you shoot a good guy you fail? Did you have to use a live gun to shoot a target?…Did you have to attend eight hours each on Thursday and Friday, then four hours each on Saturday and Sunday?
Gun training in Arizona vs. Massachusetts…hmm…fascinating…
What an insane attitude.
I have a military background with training on a variety of weapons.
What you suggest would cause a massacre.
Training requirements for Colorado concealed carry:
“Organized shooting competitions”? “Handgun training class within the past ten years”? Doesn’t sound like much of a reflexes-to-shoot-crazy-person training requirement to me.
I should add – the thought of you having a license and access to fire arms is horrifying.
Hopefully, you are just another idiotic and clueless right-wing troll with a big mouth.
You have very clearly demonstrated in your comments above why you should never, ever be licensed to carry any weapon.
On further research, this time into Arizona laws regarding concealed carry:
Not a word in there about the fantasy training you claim is required. Numbers 2 and 5 in particular put the lie to your nonsense. (Do Arizona game animals engage in pitched gun battles with hunters? Is someone with a ten-year-old DD-214 still razor-sharp in combat reflexes?)
And that’s wholly aside from the dismissal of your heroic bad-guy-taking-down dreamscape by those with the actual, ya know, real-life experience to call it the BS it is.
Oh please!!! I have had my CC for years. It is nothing more than a cursory gun training. You are living in a fucking NRA fantasy world.
The attitude of this commenter is quite common among gun fetishists. It’s evidence of the problem, not the solution.
Also, too: hundreds of people in an auditorium in an urban setting. Chances are at least a few of them did have concealed carry permits and were packing. Thank God they – unlike this commenter – had the good sense not to try to play hero.
In Canada it’s much, much more difficult to buy a gun or get a concealed carry permit. Mass shootings like the one in Toronto are much more rare in Canada than in the U.S. Just sayin’.
Geov…come on, dude…fucking bullshit…you know in your heart of hearts that if someone in the audience had a gun, they would have shot at that motherfucker…
Please…admit the truth…
I really wish I (with my wife, since she carries the Glock 40, but in that circumstance, I would take the gun from her, although she’s the better shot…maybe I would let her kill the motherfucker…)…would have been there.
Less dead innocents, one dead insane motherfucker…
Wake Up Progs!!!
tell me, gun expert, what does Glock .40 ammo do to full body armor?
You are quite deluded. There is no civilian training that will prepare you for an assault in a dark crowded movie theater. It takes very little time to expend a magazine and not more than a few seconds to reload a weapon.
Throw in the distraction of the movie and the smoke bomb and your reflexes and response times are likely to be even slower. Add to that the screams, blood, and gore that most people will be utterly unprepared for.
Speaking as active military with firearms training but really this should be common sense.
I know in my heart of hearts that I am exceedingly grateful that you were nowhere near that fucking auditorium.
I grew up in a family of cops and military. I know from guns. This is not a right/left issue; any cop or soldier with a head on their shoulders (which is most of them) would tell you the same thing all the other commenters are telling you. I repeat: you, sir, with your unrealistic worship of firearms and what they can, and can’t, do, are part of the problem.
There are as many guns in the US in private hands as there are people in the US. Colorado permits concealed carry.
To you I ask, “Where were these folks with concealed carry permits when you need them?”
To those who advocate gun control legislation I ask, “What is your plan for controlling the 300 million guns that are already out there in various legal statuses and how are you going to control their sale and trade? What is the practical mechanism by which this can be accomplished with this many already existing weapons in private hands?
I see ideological battles over simplistic solutions while folks keep getting killed. Maybe it’s time that our cultural fantasies stopped celebrating (1) reaching for the gun first or (2) considering the gun the “great equalizer”.
Hannah Arendt had an interesting insight into what political equality is about. Political equality is about individual human being’s equal capacity to commit murder. All other equality comes about through human organization in awareness of this reality.
Mao Zedong wrote “Power comes from the barrel of a gun.”
It is amazing how many Maoists there are in the conservative movement.
As Ron Reagan pointed out today, when his dad was shot he was surrounded by many many well trained and experienced, ALL of whom were carrying.
Shooting the shooter, especially in a confined and dark auditorium, by civilians who likely are untrained, loses every time to the argument of having tougher gun control laws to begin with.
Re: twist of fate
Guns don’t kill people, malls do?
Rather than pursue a fruitless debate on gun control,in which neither side will budge, let us wonder at what happened to the mind of the shooter. The news is now saying he was a high school honor student, a PhD candidate in arcane medical studies. Studies related to the brain yet. Still, this top student was going to be washed out, snapped and planned a deadly confrontation with total strangers. Not for religious, or political reasons. Not out of greed. For what? Why? WHY?
I haven’t a clue as to why. None of the traditional motives for murder seem to apply.
One hypothesis that has been mentioned (without evidence) is anti-depressant backlash.
I haven’t heard any speculation on it yet, but it wouldn’t be any great stretch of credulity. Those things are everywhere, and the reactions seem to be getting more severe. I say “seem to be,” because in my own little world I’m seeing a lot more accounts of suicidal reactions to prescription changes. The actual numbers don’t appear to be all that up-to-date yet.
That is a very good suggestion. It seems from the label warnings that sometimes these anti-psychotic drugs have the opposite effect, depending on the subject’s genetic makeup, like Zoloft causing suicides. Also, note that the drugs that ADDHD kids take to calm down are NOT sedatives, they are amphetamines that have the “paradoxical response” in some people.
Could be anyone or all of the following–
I’ve never understood how others make the leap from unbearable pain/difficulties to murdering strangers that had no role in one’s difficulties. Thus, I don’t understand US foreign military actions.