On Sunday, November 20, 2022 I learned that an armed killer entered Club Q, a queer bar and nightlife space in Colorado Springs, and prematurely ended the lives of five patrons and injured 22 more. I knew it would happen again. This time, though, I reacted differently. I felt personally violated, passionately angered and deeply unsettled. I stood there for a long time trying to figure out why this mass shooting was different, other than the obvious reason that it had targeted queer people like me. The news of the immeasurable, yet familiar, loss of life weighed heavily on my mind, but something immensely somber wrapped around my soul.
Gun violence is endemic in America; it is a strange and dangerous reality our society has made normal and seemingly immovable. Accounts of perpetrators — mostly cisgender heterosexual white men — slinging firearms and donning combat gear to enter public spaces and reap the lives of innocent people date back decades. Our country's founders revered this power one can hold and dispense with the slip of a finger so much they made it the second item within our nation's list of guaranteed rights.
