Gun Violence Hits Home
For most American’s, gun violence is something that happens elsewhere. It is someone else’s tragedy, someone else’s pain, some other community's moment in the ever-moving news cycle that is always looking for the next tragedy to exploit for ratings.
For my community, this all changed around 2 PM on January 22, 2025.
A mentally distressed person with a gun opened fire on police when they stopped to check on him as he walked along the road in single digit temperatures.
They were responding to reports of a person in mental distress who was suicidal and wandering along the road. He was located walking the road near the main intersection in Calcutta.
As the officers were attempting to speak with him, he opened fire, striking one of the officers in the head. The other officers returned fire and by the time the shooting ended, Officer Dakota Wetzel that had been shot, an innocent child, Rosalie Martin, who had been in the dentist office had been caught in the crossfire and was clinging to life.
The mentally distress and suicidal man that had been the first to open fire had also been hit by multiple bullets and was clinging to life.
Five hours later the local news had confirmed that both the distressed man, and the innocent child had died, and the officer was in critical condition in a Pittsburgh hospital undergoing surgery.
Now it is my community that came close to getting its time in the national gun violence spotlight, only to be knocked out of the major news cycles by yet another school shooting.
How many other communities experienced similar tragedies today, only to have them ignored by the politicians who are beholden to the money they receive from the gun lobby? Communities that should never have been caught up in senseless violence if America would begin to take this violence serious.
Rather than look at simple, common-sense measures to keep firearms out of the hands of mentally unstable people, teens who do not have that ability to separate their emotions from the consequences of rash actions, or someone who just wants to get their fifteen minutes of fame, or infamy.
Until enough Americans are personally touched by gun violence and vote against politicians who look the other way after gun violence touches another community, there will be no changes.
Even if Americans did reach the point where they were tired of the shootings, the politicians will never be willing to pass up on the money they get from the gun lobby. They showed how loyal they are to gun money after a shooting that was directed at them. They willingly looked past their own injuries, making excuses for the shooter, while taking their latest cut from the deep pockets of the gun lobby.
While attitudes like these seem like there is no hope for change, there is a younger generation that is about to enter the political arena. A generation that has grown up in fear of this violence. A fresh group of politicians who, hopefully, do not find themselves swayed by the deep pockets of the gun lobby.
The Ohio FOP has set up a page to collect donations for Officer Dakota Wetzel and the family of Rosalie Martin, the child killed in this shooting.