Karina Shedrofsky

USA TODAY

Sandy Hook Elementary was demolished after 26 people were shot and killed there. After 14 people were killed at a conference center in San Bernardino, Calif., the building remains closed. But in Orlando, after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Pulse’s nightclub owner vows to reopen.

Experts say reactions to this decision may vary. Some may see the club’s reopening as a painful reminder of the 49 lives lost, others may see it as a symbol of strength in the community.

Owner Barbara Poma, who founded the nightclub as a safe haven for Orlando’s gay community, welcomed the victims’ relatives into the Pulse family.

“We just have to move forward and find a way to keep their hearts beating and keep our spirits alive,” she said on Today. “We’re not going to let someone take this away from us.”

Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, said people react to horrible life events differently. Some may turn the nightclub into a home for activism, using the tragedy as an opportunity to move a cause, she said.

“I think the bigger message that they are trying to convey is that a terrible act like this not only shouldn’t stop us from having a place where people can go and be comfortable, but also that there is some way we can turn this into a positive symbol,” Rosenberg said.

It is very important, she says, that the Pulse owners are thoughtful and careful in deciding how and when they will reopen the club.

Charles Figley, a professor in disaster mental health at Tulane University, said reopening the club is “an absolutely fantastic idea.”

To Figley, the nightclub isn’t just a crime scene but a sacred place with the potential to bring the community together. It gives the victims’ relatives the opportunity to meet and connect with other members of the LGBT community.

“It’s very therapeutic, and it connects people,” he said. “It reinforces the love and caring in that particular community.”

Figley said the ultimate decision to reopen the nightclub should be left to the Orlando community and victims’ friends and family.

If Pulse is going to reopen for business to show it is not afraid, “then what better reason to invite everybody that was affected to come and be a part of the healing,” he said.

Not all locations of mass shootings require the same responses, and different communities have handled the aftermaths of these attacks differently.

One week after a gunman shot and killed nine people at a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., last summer, churchgoers gathered again in the same room where bullets had been flying.

At the Century Aurora 16 movie theater in Colorado, it's business as usual almost four years after James Holmes opened fire in 2012 during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 and injuring 70. The movie theater reopened after six months of renovation.

It took about one month for the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif., to reopen its offices after married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people Dec. 2, but the conference center where the shooting took place remains closed indefinitely.

Residents of Newtown, Conn., voted to demolish Sandy Hook Elementary School after 20 students, ages 6-7, and six educators were shot and killed by Adam Lanza in 2012. A new school is being built on the site.

Elsewhere:

The observation deck of the Tower at the University of Texas-Austin, where Charles Whitman barricaded himself in 1966 while shooting at random, killing 14 and wounding 32, was closed for two years before being reopened to the public.

The Luby’s Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas, where George Hennard drove his truck through the front window before opening fire and killing 23 patrons in 1991, reopened five months after the shooting. It permanently closed in 2000, and the building is home to a Chinese restaurant.

Despite initial plans to reopen the San Ysidro McDonald’s where James Huberty shot and killed 21 people and wounded 19 others in 1984, the fast-food chain was demolished.

After two teens went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in 1999, killing 13 people, the school reopened its doors the following fall.

The Washington Navy Yard Building, where 12 people were killed and four were injured by gunman Aaron Alexis in 2013, reopened in 2015 after extensive renovations changed the building’s layout and appearance.



Therese Rando, clinical director at the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Loss, acknowledged that when it comes to psychology, what might work well for some bereaved individuals might not work as well for others.

“Part of stepping out of the victim role for many people is to empower oneself and take the course of action necessary to assert oneself and make a statement symbolically,” she said, referring to the statement Poma is making by reopening the club and reclaiming it as a place that is important to the community.

Others may wish something different was done with the club, “something that would underlie the gravity of the situation,” she said.

It is never going to go back to business as usual, because what happened at Pulse can never be undone. “It’s an important part in the fabric of the community and country,” she said, “which may be enough to allow folks to be comfortable with the club's reopening.”