Despicable! Odious! Repugnant!
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised
for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It would be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep,
his cupidity may at some point be satiated;
but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis
Despicable. Diabolic. Inhuman. Odious. Loathsome. Repugnant. Obscene. Beastly. Skanky. Contemptible. Detestable. Disgusting. Hateful.
The National Gun Violence Archives defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people aside from the perpetrator were shot at the same general location and at approximately the same time.
Mark Keith Robinson became the thirty-fifth lieutenant governor of North Carolina on January 9, 2021. On April 22, 2023, he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor of the Tar Heel State.
Since he assumed office, there were twenty-two mass shootings in North Carolina in 2021; twenty-nine men, women and children were killed and seventy were wounded. There were twenty-three mass shootings in 2022; thirty-one men, women and children were killed and eighty-four were wounded. At the end of the first week of May 2023, there had been nine mass shootings, resulting in thirteen deaths and thirty-five men, women and children injured.
*****
At approximately 2:19 p.m – twenty minutes before dismissal time, on February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines, entered a hallway of Marjorie Taylor Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and began firing indiscriminately. He killed three students in a first-floor hallway before firing through the windows of four closed classroom doors, killing six more students and wounding thirteen others. After killing two staff members near a stairwell, he proceeded to the second floor, still firing but not hitting anyone. On the third floor, he shot and killed five students and another staff member; four other students were injured. When his rifle jammed, he fled the building. He was arrested at about 3:40 p.m., after having stopped to get a soda at a fast-food restaurant.
Although the shooting last almost six minutes, seventeen people – fourteen students between fourteen- and eighteen-years old and three staff members - were killed and seventeen others were wounded in just under four minutes.
On October 20, 2021, Cruz pleaded guilty to all charges, including murder and attempted murder. Because jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the death penalty, he is now serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
The day after the shooting, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami released a letter from Pope Francis, who said he was “deeply saddened to learn of the tragic shooting” and assured all those affected by the “devastating attack” of his spiritual closeness and that he was praying “that Almighty God may grant eternal rest to the dead and healing and consolation to the wounded and those who grieve.”
Signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the letter declared the Pope's spiritual closeness: "With the hope that such senseless acts of violence may cease, Pope Francis invokes upon all of you the divine blessings of peace and strength."
*****
Jordana Judson, then 23 and living in New York, was desperate to return to Florida for the funeral of Meadow Pollack, 18. “They [the Pollack family] were like our second family our whole lives,” explained Jordana. But, when Jordana, who had been unable to control her tears since learning of the Parkland shooting, arrived at the LaGuardia airport JetBlue counter her grief became even more overwhelming – there was no way she could afford the $700 flight and the JetBlue agent couldn’t arrange a bereavement discount.
That’s when New York State Troopers Robert Troy and Thomas Karasinski stepped in. Jordana “was in tears and very upset,” Troy told NBC News.
"I look up, and the state troopers are standing there, and they're both handing over their credit cards," she recalled. "I'm telling them that they don't have to do this. This is crazy. They said: 'It's already done. We want you to be home with their families. This is a tough time.' It was very heartwarming. It made my heart full and heavy at the same time," Judson added.
Troy sympathized with her situation. "The sense of just being there for your family and friends, you want to be there for them. You're going to go through anything to get there," he said.
"I know. I have five little sisters. If that was one of them, I'd want someone to help them out," he said of Judson. "It was a sigh of relief. She was more in shock that we paid for her ticket."
Troy added that he felt "it was the right thing to do." He said he and Karasinski "both agreed if it was anybody in our family that was trying to get down there that we would do anything that we could to try to help.”
JetBlue spokesman Doug McGraw reported that the airline was “moved by the extremely kind and generous acts of service shown by these officers” and was refunding the cost of the ticket to cover Jordana’s travel.
New York State Police Superintendent George P. Beach II told NBC News, “As members of the State Police and law enforcement, we take an oath to protect and serve. We also instill in our members the importance of acting with respect and empathy for the people they encounter.”
*****
In the days following one of the deadliest shootings in American history, as they mourned and buried their classmates, teachers, a coach and friends, students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas spearheaded the March For Our Lives - a worldwide response to gun violence. On Saturday, March 24, 2018 – barely six weeks after the shooting, they turned out in American cities large and smalls, in towns and villages; they marched in Germany and Brazil, in Amsterdam and Berlin, Paris and Sydney, London and Geneva.
Yet on February 27, as a nation mourned and the pope prayed for seventeen lives lost, seventeen innocent teens injured and uncountable young people and families devastated, and students prepared to March For Our Lives, the future lieutenant governor and would-be governor of North Carolina took to FaceBook:
“Let me see if I have this correct. A spoiled, angry disobedient CHILD shot and killed 17 of his classmates, and now spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN are trying to tell law abiding ADULTS that we must give up our Constitutional RIGHT to own certain weapons. Cue Rod Sterling because this must be an episode of the Twilight Zone? David Hogg [a MSD student and one of the organizers of the March For Our Lives] and the rest of these silly little immature ‘media prosti-tots’ need to grab a passy, have a seat in time out, and shut up. The very ideology of conservatism that your liberal mollycoddling string pullers have taught you to despise is exactly what you and your schools have desperately needed to prevent these massacres as well as the multitude of FAILURES that exist in public education. The conservative principles of excellence, hard work, self respect, RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE and DISCIPLINE are what your schools need. Instead you have the liberal syndrome of rectal cranial inversion mixed with a healthy dose of just plain evil and stupid permeating your hallways. If, two days before this shooting, a hard nosed nonsense [sic] conservative had walked into that school and put into place the ideals and principles that would have avoided that massacre, you spoiled little bastards would have kicked and screamed like babies in a crib. That’s what you are doing now. In fact you’re doing less than that. A baby’s cries are useful and necessary. You are simply making irritating noise. You say you want to “make a difference.” Well here’s how you do it. Go to school. Behave well. Study hard. Respect your fellow classmates. And enjoy being children while you can.
Pretty soon you’ll be adults…
And you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
Despicable. Diabolic. Inhuman. Odious. Loathsome. Repugnant. Obscene. Beastly. Skanky. Contemptible. Detestable. Disgusting. Hateful.
*****
Two thousand years ago, an itinerant prophet and teacher challenged the dietary laws of his time and the religious leaders who enforced them. His words were so strong that two authors repeated them:
“What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart that evil thoughts come…” (Mark 7:20)
“Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
(Matthew 15:10-11)
The lieutenant governor and wanna-be governor of North Carolina has shown us what is in his heart.
It’s
Despicable. Diabolic. Inhuman. Odious. Loathsome. Repugnant. Obscene. Beastly. Skanky. Contemptible. Detestable. Disgusting. Hateful.
By God’s grace, teachers, coaches and students risked and gave their own lives at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas that day – so that others might live.
By God’s grace, Pope Francis and others responded with prayers that reflected genuine empathy and compassion – not simply hollow and perfunctory “thoughts and prayers.”
By God’s grace, New York State Troopers Robert Troy and Thomas Karasinski displayed wondrous kindness, compassion, humility and humanity.
By God’s grace, David Hogg and his suffering classmates and friends dared to March For Our Lives and they were joined by millions in cities large and small and around the world.
And Mark Keith Robinson, the wanna-be governor of North Carolina, proved himself
Despicable. Diabolic. Inhuman. Odious. Loathsome. Repugnant. Obscene. Beastly. Skanky. Contemptible. Detestable. Disgusting. Hateful.