Photo : David McNew ( Getty )

America is reeling from its worst mass shooting in nearly two weeks, after a gunman, identified by police as Ian David Long, opened fire at the Borderline bar on Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, CA. At least 12 people were killed, including Long, who reportedly turned the gun on himself.




But, it seems, the uniquely American sickness inherent in this latest act of gun violence is all the more horrific—and all the more American—upon learning that that among those at the Borderline bar were reportedly multiple patrons who had previously survived last year’s massacre at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas.

“A lot of people in the Route 91 situation go here,” Chandler Gunn, whose friend worked at Borderline, told the Los Angeles Times. “There’s people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there’s people that have seen it twice.”


Carl Edgar, who said he had “about 20 friends” who inside the Borderline during the shooting, shared a similar sentiment with the Times. “A lot of my friends survived Route 91,” he explained. “If they survived that, they’ll survive this.”

Speaking with CBS News, Nicholas Champion estimated that there had been “probably 50 or 60 others” who, like him, were survivors of the Las Vegas massacre in attendance at the Borderline bar on Wednesday during the shooting.

“We all are a big family,” Chapman told the network. “And unfortunately, this family got hit twice.”

Welcome to America—a country so hopelessly addicted to guns that surviving one mass shooting is no guarantee that you won’t be caught in the middle of another one just a year later.