It’s really tempting to be discouraged right now. While we collectively wrestle down the pandemic and restart our economy, the following occurred in just a week’s time:
- An unhinged person murdered eight innocent people in several Atlanta, Georgia spas.
- Five days later, a gunman murdered ten innocent people in a Boulder, Colorado King Soopers grocery store…a place where families go for their most basic need of food.
- Two days later, yet another assailant entered another Atlanta, Georgia establishment–a Publix grocery store–intent on doing the same type of harm.
Thankfully the Publix assailant was stopped as he exited the restroom, wearing body armor and possessing 2 long rifles and 3 handguns, before he could harm anyone. A tragedy averted by some brave people being in the right place at the right time.
I’m incredibly thankful he was stopped, but luck is not a strategy. The same day as the Publix incident, The Washington Post published an article titled:
“Shootings never stopped during the pandemic: 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades.”
I wish I could say the statistics were startling, but they weren’t. The startling part was I, like too many of us, have come to expect this and the inevitable cycle that follows each high-profile shooting. With no intention of minimizing the real victims of this violence, our hope has also become its figurative victim.
The cold reality is our collective politics are too broken and our positions too uncompromising to meaningfully stop these situations from happening again (and again) for the foreseeable future. That keeps me awake at night.
However, these horrible situations can also be the inspiration to wake us up in the morning.
They drive us here. We believe that because we can help, we have an obligation to help. We also understand that we can’t just focus only on these situations. As horrific and catastrophic as they are, shootings are random and–relative to other risks–rare. That’s why we’re also committed to singular solutions protecting against both the common and the catastrophic.
However tonight, yet again, the catastrophic is what will be keeping me awake. But tomorrow will be a new day and a new opportunity to try to help make this world a safer place.
-Scott Keplinger, Malum Terminus Technologies CEO