A mass shooting close to home.
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Friend,

Last night, a small group Common Dreams staff members who live in and
around Portland, Maine, got together for dinner, enjoying each other's
company even as we discussed the latest chaos in Congress, the war in
Gaza, and other issues you would expect progressive journalists to
discuss.

Around 8 p.m., just as we were finishing our meal, the cell phones on
the table began to buzz and rattle.

The mass shooting in Lewiston is close to home for many of us. We have
friends, family, and colleagues in that community. Our children know
those children. We drive those roads that police are now scouring.

My young kids are home with me today because school was canceled due to
the ongoing manhunt. My wife, a first-grade teacher, has been on
numerous calls with colleagues as they mobilize a response and
strategize about how they will explain what happened to students as
young as six and seven.

Of course, I've covered dozens and dozens (and dozens) of mass
shootings during my years as a journalist, but today-with a
shelter-in-place order still in effect for large areas where I
live-there'e one question I find myself asking: what does it really
mean to find safety when the world's like this?

My family feels safe where we are right now. But last night in Lewiston,
people were laughing with friends one moment, and in the next had no
place to shelter from an assault rifle's bullets.

I've also been thinking about the children and other innocent people
in Gaza who have no safe place to shelter-not in their homes, not even
in a hospital. And I have thought about those who died in southern
Israel on October 7, many of whom had built "safe rooms" inside their
homes that still weren't enough to save them.

In a world that refuses to confront its addiction to guns, violence, and
war, it becomes harder and harder to know what it means when we ask
people to "shelter in place."

The anger, frustration, and woe that result from that can be paralyzing.
Yet we have no choice but to forge ahead with a loving heartache and a
yearning for a better world.

If you want to support our ongoing coverage of this world, please know
from the bottom of our hearts that we cherish your generosity
. We
believe deeply that independent journalism always has a role to play,
and it's the best way we know to be part of the solution.

Most importantly, I wanted to thank you, as a reader of Common Dreams,
for being a part of the solution, too. Wherever you are in the world
today, we need you to keep the empathy for others burning and the hope
for a better world alive.

DONATE

With deep sincerity and gratitude for what you do in the world,

Jon Queally
Managing Editor
on behalf of the entire Common Dreams team

PS: Common Dreams relies on our sustaining donors to keep us going full
steam ahead. Will you become a monthly donor today?

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