No mother deserves to wake up to her child missing in the morning, the same as no mother deserves to see her child return from war unrecognizable.
Thousand Oaks is a sleepy community full of retirees and peaceful suburban life. It did not deserve this.
I’ve spent a great deal of time there. My best friend lived there and I was there every day for a good year in 2012. It’s a place where people wake up early, pay their taxes, drive their Buicks to Sprouts, and coexist with Los Angeles as if it’s thousands of miles away even though it’s a short jaunt down the 101 where you hope you don’t get caught in traffic near Encino.
My heart is broken, as someone who attended Pepperdine, as someone who loves this area and knows it’s one of the safest places in the world to raise a family, and as a viewer of this hell. I can’t imagine what these parents must be experiencing. There are few places open past 8pm in Thousand Oaks, and the ones that are definitely aren’t open past 10. On an 18+ night these teens needed a safe, local place to go without driving into town for 45 min. They ended up here. They ended up dead.
They ended up dead because a young boy sent to Afghanistan came back a changed man, and our leaders and healthcare providers didn’t see fit to help him. His mother lived in a house with holes in the walls he punched in. His local police force knew him, had been called out multiple times. “Known to law enforcement” is the new “homegrown terrorist”.
We don’t have a solution and anyone who thinks they do is pretending. He shot with a .45 magnum, “the world’s most powerful handgun”, a weapon you’ll find in many American homes. With over 300 million American guns and over 300 million American people, they won’t go away.
He used a “bump stock” of some sort which allowed more than the allowed rounds to be shot. You can ban those stocks, sure, but that covers one hole in the ground. A mole can find another.
Maybe we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan anymore. Maybe two decades is enough, with children born during deployment going to the same war as their fathers, a first in American history.
Maybe our veterans deserve health care, mental health care, so readjusting to civilian life isn’t a jarring experience.
Maybe armed guards should defend every venue with more than 50 people.
Maybe the media shouldn’t serialize those who kill.
Maybe evil shouldn’t be in quiet, sleepy towns just over Malibu Canyon.
Maybe another parent has to sleep at night without a child.
Maybe we’ll have some rest from this endless cycle of violence.
Maybe we’ll do better next time.
Maybe.
