One day after twelve people were killed in Thousand Oaks, Calif.[1] — the 307th mass shooting in the United States this year and comes just over a week after the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting[2], where 11 people were gunned down in an apparent hate crime — law enforcement officials confirmed that the weapon that Ian Long had used was an extended magazine outlawed in California by a 2016 voter referendum. The law's implementation, however, is currently delayed by a lawsuit from the NRA, the deep-pocketed pro-gun organization.
In the wake of Wednesday's mass shooting, one of the victims parents disavowed the post-mass shooting playbook. Their son, who was killed on Wednesday, survived the deadliest mass shooting in America last year in Las Vegas.
"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," Susan Orfanos said in an interview with a local television. "I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody else sends me anymore prayers. I want gun control. No more guns."
In an interview with the Washington Post[3], Marc Orfanos, Susan's husband, described what the newspaper called "a ritual familiar to parents in Columbine, Blacksburg, Aurora, Newton, Orlando, Parkland — and, as of this week, also in the quiet outpost of Los Angeles."
"You're always holding out hope," he told The Post. He said he and his wife had stormed to the Borderline Bar & Grill, where a "college country night" for students came to an end when a U.S. Marine veteran opened fire at the country and western dance hall[4] shortly before midnight.
The couple waited in a crisis center nearby when several survivors told the parents that
