I cover a lot of these, and a lot of them happened most recently on and around July 4, but the basic point is that mass shooters keep shooting up our crowd events: parades, fireworks displays, rallies, high school graduations, sports events etc., etc. I think the great symbol of this social movement will be the 2017 Las Vegas Harvest Music Festival massacre (‘1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413 others. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867.’), but that mad motiveless killer’s death toll will inevitably be surpassed by another person who for no reason at all wants to kill everybody.
But it’s the smaller stories, the daily stories, you’re missing, and that’s too bad because the death of American public events is happening all around us, small story by small story. You can find gobs of them on this blog, like the decision yesterday by the town of Pahrump (not far from Las Vegas) to suspend “Movies in the Park … until further notice,” because a crowd can’t gather in Pahrump without people shooting at everyone. Movies in the Park becomes Mossbergs in the Park and that’s the end of the matter.