“Tame The Savageness Of Man And Make Gentle The Life Of This World” ― Aeschylus

I was glued to the TV news stations most of the day watching the national news reports of what happened in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The reports of the largest mass shooting in this county’s history with at least 59 dead and at least 515 injured were shocking and heartbreaking.

The cell phone camera videos recorded all the pure evil unfolding.

The “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop” of rapid gunfire was first thought to be firecrackers going off and joy turned to absolute terror as the shooting went on for fifteen minutes while people fled in terror and disbelief and people dropped like flies after being shot.

The local area hospitals were reported looking like “Mash Units”.

To be sure there were acts of heroism that are emerging reflecting how people went to the aide of strangers.

A 64-year-old American killing and shooting high capacity weapons from the 32th story of a building at a crowd of 22,000 attending a country and western concert on the Las Vegas strip and killing and injuring so many others without any apparent motive can only be described as just plain evil.

The Las Vegas massacre was not the result of “radical Islamic terrorist” nor of any terrorist organization.

According to news reports, and law enforcement are finding it extremely difficult to find any motive nor rational for the shooting.

The 64 year old gunman, was twice divorced, had a girlfriend, had no criminal history, no history of mental illness, he had substantial wealth, he lived in a “gated” retirement community living in a $360,000 two bedroom home, and according to his brother, “he was a big gambler who could afford to gamble”, won $40,000 recently at a slot machine, and he had “no affiliation, no religion, no politics … he never cared about any of that stuff” … and “He was a guy who had money, went on cruises and gambled” according to his brother and would take care of his 90 year old mother’s needs.

When is the absolute madness and gun violence going to stop in this country?

The Las Vegas mass shooting will now be added to our ever-growing list of mass murders and gun violence incidents described by the locations where they occurred: Dallas Police Shootings, Orlando Massacre, San Bernardino Massacre, South Carolina Church Massacre, Boston Massacre, Sandy Hook Massacre, Columbine Massacre, Columbus Massacre, VA Tech Massacre just to mention a few.

What is our country coming to, what are we becoming as a nation, what are we doing to ourselves?

We will now have another period of mourning, more funeral’s, more tears, more nightly vigils followed by arguments over gun control, followed by silence and inaction by our elected officials as we move on to yet another crisis and no doubt another mass shooting in a few more months.

Gun rights advocates and opponents, law enforcement and our elected officials need to find a solution to the gun violence in this country before this country can stop spiraling into total civil war.

Each time one of these massacres occur, we slowly lose our freedoms.

As Americans, we need to come together, be tolerant and respect each other, confront our demons and aside our differences and seek within ourselves to find solutions to our problems, our differences, before we destroy ourselves, and lose the freedoms we enjoy and lose our country to total violence and chaos.

May God bless the victims and the families of the Las Vegas massacre and please Lord bless this country in these turbulent times and please give us the guidance and wisdom to handle yet another tragedy.

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
― Aeschylus

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About

Pete Dinelli was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is of Italian and Hispanic descent. He is a 1970 graduate of Del Norte High School, a 1974 graduate of Eastern New Mexico University with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and a 1977 graduate of St. Mary's School of Law, San Antonio, Texas. Pete has a 40 year history of community involvement and service as an elected and appointed official and as a practicing attorney in Albuquerque. Pete and his wife Betty Case Dinelli have been married since 1984 and they have two adult sons, Mark, who is an attorney and George, who is an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Pete has been a licensed New Mexico attorney since 1978. Pete has over 27 years of municipal and state government service. Pete’s service to Albuquerque has been extensive. He has been an elected Albuquerque City Councilor, serving as Vice President. He has served as a Worker’s Compensation Judge with Statewide jurisdiction. Pete has been a prosecutor for 15 years and has served as a Bernalillo County Chief Deputy District Attorney, as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant District Attorney and as a Deputy City Attorney. For eight years, Pete was employed with the City of Albuquerque both as a Deputy City Attorney and Chief Public Safety Officer overseeing the city departments of police, fire, 911 emergency call center and the emergency operations center. While with the City of Albuquerque Legal Department, Pete served as Director of the Safe City Strike Force and Interim Director of the 911 Emergency Operations Center. Pete’s community involvement includes being a past President of the Albuquerque Kiwanis Club, past President of the Our Lady of Fatima School Board, and Board of Directors of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation.