Dr. Janis Orlowski is the chief medical officer at MedStar Washington Hospital, where many of the victims of yesterday's shooting were taken. Speaking to the press afterwards, Dr. Orlowski spoke not only of the number of patients, but what she saw as a disease in our society that allows these tragedies to occur far too often.
Via Mediaite:
"There's something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate," Orlowski said after decrying what she called "senseless trauma."
"There's something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries," she continued. "There is something wrong."
"I would like you to put my trauma center out of business," Orlowski added. "I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots and not to be an expert on this."
"It's a great city. It's a great country, and we have to work together to get rid of this," she concluded. "Because we just cannot have, you know, one more shooting with, you know, so many people killed."
She ended her remarks by saying "Let's end this. This is not America."
Oh, but it absolutely is America. America today, where gun manufacturers' proxy, the NRA, cheers every time some crazy lunatic shouts liberty and offs ten or fifteen people while leaving a bunch more injured in their wake. These are the same people who fearmonger over the Boston bombers while shirking their own responsibility for the violence left in the wake of their devotees' fetishlike obsession with weapons of human destruction.
Yes, I'm afraid this is America. The America the NRA built, and one they'll cling to as long as the last man standing is armed.