Gun crimes can be lightning fast or take years to claim a life

WE THINK OF VIOLENCE — especially gun violence — as something that is lightning fast. A gunshot is almost a measure of something here one minute and gone the next. Superman famously is described as “faster than a speeding bullet.” But speeding bullets are routinely caught by the slow or by things — people — not even moving at all. It’s hard to run from gunfire without risking a bullet in the back. We know this because, in the event of a school shooting, we do not teach children to run. We teach them to be silent. We teach them to hide. We teach them to turn off the lights, pull the shades and pretend to be anywhere but in the classroom where they might attract the attention of gunman whose bullets travel about 2,700 feet per second. However, sometimes a bullet can take a slower path. On Tuesday, Rosanna S. King, 23, died. She was the last victim of the West Nickel Mines Amish School shooting in October 2006. King was only 6 when Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, barricaded himself inside her school, pushing out the boys and adults while keeping the girls tied up. Five girls died before Roberts turned the gun on himself. Five more were injured, including King, who was shot in the head and left with profound medical needs. King succumbed to her speeding bullet 18 years after the shooting. Her story is not unique. Guns do not always kill in the blink of an eye. For John E. Murray III, it took 34½ years for the gunshot wounds that paralyzed him in November 1989 to end his life. When he died in April due to sepsis, authorities attributed his death to that shotgun blast. His death was deemed a homicide. George Nicholas pleaded guilty and served three years in prison but still maintains that the shooting was in self-defense. Whether he will be further charged remains to be seen. These are the stories that do not get enough attention in the wake of gun crimes. King’s death came a day before the Apalachee High School shooting in Winder, Ga., where two students and two teachers were killed and nine others were wounded. People pay attention to the fear and panic, to the blood and the funerals, to the vigils and the trials. But they forget that the injured are still casualties and that, just because there is a scar, it doesn’t mean there isn’t lasting damage. We must find a solution to gun violence, not just because of how quickly it can kill but because, sometimes, it is agonizingly slow.