I love travelling to the USA. The people for the most part are friendly, there are travel deals to be had if you look around, the food portions are ridiculous and you can find pretty much anything you want to do at any time.
The incident in Las Vegas was the first time for a lot of us here on the West Coast to get a glance at what this kind of mayhem looks like up close. We see events unfold in Europe and while you feel terrible about seeing terrorism first hand, you never suspect that something this egregious will occur so close to home.
Vegas was NOT terrorism, despite what ISIS would have you believe. It was one man, acting alone, and causing chaos. At least that is the preliminary indication.
Does this make me swear off the USA? No. Does it make me pause for thought? Most certainly.
The most telling stat of the day, besides the scores murdered and hundreds injured, is the fact that this is the 275th day of the year and there have been 272nd instance of mass gun violence in 2017. Almost one per day.
While I will continue to visit America and will happily hang out with the people of that great nation, my choices about where I go and what I do will be weighed by potential dangers that I face. You can never guess that on a particular day that this will be your last one. But I can tell you this, until gun laws get under control, I will certainly be picking my spots about where I go and what I do. Some will call this uninformed and misguided, I call it prudent.
As long as one person can change the course of so many in one act of violence, I am pretty certain that I am allowed to make the decision that I can to keep myself and my loved ones safe.