A second-hand invite and unexpected friends in West Rome
From the Charlotte Observer
Five months later, we still don’t know why Stephen Paddock rented a room in a Las Vegas high-rise and decided to commit one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, killing 58 and injuring more than 500.
Despite the carnage and initial chatter among members of Congress — and even the National Rifle Association — about finally taking concrete steps to lessen the chances such an event could be repeated, the federal government has again proven itself incapable of taking the issue seriously. Fortunately, several states and cities have begun trying to make up for Congress’s derelict of duty.
After the shooting, Columbia, South Carolina, became the first city to officially ban devices called bump stocks, which allowed Paddock to turn semi-automatic weapons into ones that could fire more rapidly and consistently. Cities such as Denver have followed suit. More than a dozen states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut have or are considering doing the same. It’s a small measure, and in some ways symbolic.
It won’t prevent every mass shooting. It won’t stop every person determined to cause as much harm as possible. Guns, semi-automatic or bump stock-enhanced, are not the only way to commit massacres and unleash havoc and terror. So even if our leaders in Washington reverse course and get busy on bipartisan legislation banning bump stocks, no one should declare victory over the scourge of gun violence that is the worst in the developed world. Only diligent, painstaking law enforcement work, along with a strong partnership with the community, can root out the most dangerous among us before they can cause too much damage.
But the decision to act in the face of inaction from Washington by a growing number of cities and states is welcome nonetheless. It’s not as effective as more comprehensive background checks, better mental health care, stricter training requirements, or any number of other measures. Still, it puts down a marker, makes a declaration that there are ways to cobble together the political will to begin tackling gun violence, even if it is one painstakingly slow step at a time.
We’ve so lost our way on this issue. Mass shootings and everyday shootings, no matter if they are in churches or schools, at country music concerts, or inside nightclubs, generate a few mostly localized headlines before quickly fading from public awareness. According to the Gun Violence Archive, more than 800 people were shot and killed in less than a month after the Las Vegas shooting even as Congress refused to act. So far this year, more than 5,300 people have been shot, nearly 1,500 of whom died, including 60 children. Charlotte in 2017 saw its most homicides in a dozen years, and a gun was involved in three-quarters of them.
That list will only grow. At some point, we must muster the courage to do something about it. Banning bump stocks should be only the beginning.
DJim Powell of Young Harris eclarations that Islamic State is on the verge of defeat keep piling up. During his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said he was proud to report that “the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria.” In Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told his country in December that “we can announce the end of the war against (Islamic State).”
Territorially, Islamic State has been squashed. But the threat it poses remains all too real — and ominous.
The New York Times reports that thousands of Islamic State foreign fighters have been slipping out of the eastern Syrian battlefield and hiding in Damascus and other parts of northwest Syria. Many with European roots are paying smugglers to get them over the Syrian border into Turkey, which they hope to use as a conduit to return to their homelands in Western Europe. Some have training in chemical weapons and are staying in Syria to join al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.
Routed from its prized strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, Islamic State is now becoming what many militant groups morph into after their defeat on the battlefield — a guerrilla movement that emphasizes soft target attacks, using suicide bombings and ambushes to prey on places where civilians congregate.
Baghdad has been a prime target for those attacks. But few places in the world are immune. The wars in Syria and Iraq drew fighters from more than 120 countries. Thousands died in battle, but Western officials say it’s likely that thousands more escaped to their home countries. EU officials think as many as 1,500 militants have returned to their homes in Europe. There were also Americans fighting in Iraq and Syria, though how many were directly affiliated with Islamic State isn’t known.
Will some postwar militants give up the cause? Perhaps. But it would be foolish to think that many others wouldn’t bide their time, and wait for the right moment to inflict terror. Whether carried out by sleeper cells or lone wolves inspired by Islamic State propaganda, we’ve seen what that carnage looks like in London and Manchester, Paris and Nice and, in the U.S., Orlando and New York.
Turkey is a front line for preventing postwar militants from heading westward. Right now, however, Turkish forces are attacking Syrian Kurdish fighters that the U.S. wants at the Syrian-Turkish border as a firewall to Islamic State migration. The Trump administration so far has failed to get Ankara to stand down. Failure’s not an option, however. Islamic State militants slipping over the Syrian-Turkish border isn’t just a Turkish problem — it’s a threat to many Western nations.
For their part, European governments have improved cooperation between their intelligence and law enforcement agencies, following criticism in the wake of terror attacks in Paris and Brussels that such cooperation was lacking. Part of that cooperation involves new databases of suspected foreign fighters.
As more Islamic State militants seep out of Syria and Iraq and head westward, Europe, along with the U.S., will need to intensify that cooperation. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good about regaining the territory Islamic State had seized across Syria and Iraq. But it’s far too early to cast the militant group as defanged and defeated.
I’d like to recount a little story for y’all about unexpected friendships. This happened on New Year’s Eve right here in Rome.
My friends and I were supposed to have dinner and then go over to one of their houses to have a laid-back New Year’s Eve celebration. We were probably going to get out some guitars and play some music and cut up until midnight, then watch the festivities on TV.
Well the plans didn’t quite work out that way. To begin with, we had planned to go to Bella Roma for dinner but for some reason they were closed.
So we ended up going to Olive Garden for our New Year’s Eve dinner.
After dinner we went back to my friend’s house and were about to settle down for whatever subdued fun awaited us when lo and behold Brittany hollers from the living room .... “Y’all wanna go to a bonfire in West Rome?” Her mom had texted her and said that she was over at HER friend’s house in West Rome and they had a bonfire going and that we should come over.
Now first of all if you recall it was about 18 degrees on New Year’s Eve. I wasn’t about to go stand outside some stranger’s house in West Rome.
Secondly, as I just mentioned, I had NO idea who these people were. They didn’t know me from Adam’s housecat. What if these people had no idea I was being invited to their house and then I pull up and they don’t want me there and kick me off their property? In my head, that was a very real possibility.
Well the rest of the crew were up for it. And even though I protested, it was four against one so I had to bundle up (thick jacket, a toboggan and gloves) to go stand out in the freezing cold somewhere over in West Rome on New Year’s Eve.
So we head down Shorter Avenue and then onto Burnett Ferry. Now many moons ago I used to live on Burnett Ferry. I used to live right across the road from that big Baptist Church on the right. Fellowship, I think.
But we were nowhere near where I used to live. I wasn’t driving so I’m not quite sure how we got there but after a few twists and turns we end up on a little street called Glenda Drive. Now I have NEVER in my life been out to Glenda Drive so I’m sittin’ in the back of the car and nothing look familiar to me and it’s the middle of the night and freezing cold so I just knew it was going to be a terrible time.
We get to the house and sure enough I can see the bonfire and people sitting around it.
Walking up to the bonfire, I was very uncomfortable with my second-hand invite and not knowing if these folks even knew people were coming to crash their get-together.
Brittany’s mom (who had told us to come over) introduced me to everyone and IMMEDIATELY everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome.
They offered me food and drinks and as we stood around cuttin’ up, it began to feel like I had been friends with these people all my life.
Since it was New Year’s Eve and all, there seemed to be plenty of adult beverages present. I had brought some moonshine with me, which I gladly shared with my new friends, most of whom were happy to take a sip from the mason jar. And after a couple hours we forgot about how cold it was — in part because of the blazing fire they kept throwing wood on.
We were at Karen and Jeff’s house. Their friends Wayne and Ronda Evans were there as well as two of Karen’s sons, Grant and Blake who, by the way, were a hoot. Those boys know how to have fun. One is in the Marines and the other one is in the Army. I’d never met them before but you would have thought I grew up with those boys the way they made me feel like I was part of the family.
As the night wore on and we got a little rowdier and laughed a lot louder, I couldn’t believe that I had almost refused to come out here.
I suppose it’s because I thought they were strangers and I usually have to be careful around new people who might not understand my sarcastic and sometimes inappropriate sense of humor.
But these folks made me feel right at home and I think in an alternate universe me and the husband Jeff are brothers somehow. We have the same sense of humor. Every time I’d make a joke about something inappropriate, he’d give it right back just as good.
And as the night wore on and the coolers ran low, we were having so much fun around that bonfire that we missed the countdown to the New Year. We only realized it was midnight when a whole bunch of fireworks started going off around us. But it didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to move from around that fire anyway.
After a while my crew decided it was time to head home.
I said my goodbyes to these people I had just met a few hours earlier but who now seemed like life-long friends (I’m sure the moonshine had something to do with that).
We left that little house on Glenda Drive and drove back down Burnett Ferry Road and back onto Shorter Avenue all in agreement that it had been a great New Year’s Eve. That lastminute text invite had been a Godsend.
I suppose the moral of the story is that if I had stayed in my comfort zone and not gone over to that bonfire in West Rome, I would never have met these crazy, funny, wonderful folks. I hope I get another invite to Glenda Drive soon. There’s still some moonshine left to go around. SEVERO AVILA Jim Powell of Young Harris