Feature / December 23, 2024

When Our Orgy of Gun Violence Came to My Hometown

After Columbine and Sandy Hook, after the AME Church in Charleston and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, we stopped saying “It can’t happen here.” And then it did.

Eric Orner
Eric Orner

Eric Orner is a former Capitol Hill staff counsel, and a cartoonist. His most recent graphic novel, Smahtguy, was an NPR Books We Love selection. He is a fellow at the New York Public Library Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, working on a book about Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Earlier in his career Eric wrote and drew a popular alt-weekly comic strip about LGBTQ life, called The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green.

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