During a College Night at Borderline Bar & Grill in Southern California, 28-year-old Ian David Long opened fire on the patrons of the bar, killing 13 people.
While tragic attacks like this should be a rarity in America—as they are in other countries—that sadly isn't the case. With this being the 307th shooting to kill four or more people this year, mass shootings have become as synonymous with the United States as apple pie and baseball.
This is why it's not statistically out of the question that Americans would find themselves having to face more than one mass shooting in their lifetimes. In fact, multiple survivors of the Route 91 Music Festival shooting in Las Vegas last year were also at Borderline Bar & Grill the night of this most recent atrocity. At least one of these people, Telemachus Orfanos, did not survive.
Now, his grieving mother is demanding that something finally be done.
In the heartbreaking video, Susan Orfanos eviscerates the platitude of "thoughts and prayers," saying:
"My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night, and I don't want prayers. I don't want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me anymore prayers. I want gun control. No more guns!"
Americans on Twitter rallied to support Orfanos, concurring with what she never should have had to say.
The crisis of mass shootings in the United States has long been existent, announcing its presence even more starkly in the last two weeks.
The Borderline Bar & Grill shooting is the most recent to occur in the United States, with a shooting that killed two people occurring five days prior, a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue killing 11 worshippers six days prior to that, and a shooting at a Kroger killing two people three days before that.
As so often happens in this climate, Americans are demanding that lawmakers—many of whom are funded by the virulently pro-gun National Rifle Association—finally take significant steps to offset this crisis plaguing America's conscience.
A pattern that tends to form in the face of these tragedies is outrage followed by calls to action followed by inaction until the next mass shooting begins the cycle again. However, in the past two weeks, a cycle spurred by one mass shooting hasn't completed before a new one occurs, bringing even more Americans for whom to grieve.
The country hopes that lawmakers will listen to the pleas of Susan Orfanos so that no mother will have to feel her pain again.
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