Donations for Las Vegas Victims Falling Short Because ‘Blood Touches Blood’

 

Where are all the donations for the hundreds of victims of the Las Vegas shooting?

After the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, around $80 million in donations came in to help the 200 people wounded and the families of the three killed in the attack.

Then in the wake of the 2016 Orlando terrorist attack, almost $30 million was donated to assist the 58 injured and the families of the 49 killed. The amount was so much that even those who only witnessed the shooting were each eligible for $25,000 to help alleviate trauma.

But following the Las Vegas shooting of Oct. 1, 2017—in which Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 850 others—donations for the victims have fallen far short of expectations and needs.

Writing for npr on January 20, Leila Fadel reported:

The fund is falling short of others set up in response to devastating tragedies. [I]n Las Vegas so many more lives were affected and the fund has raised just upward of $22 million. That sounds like a lot until you divide it by 24,000—that’s the estimated number of people at that festival when the shooting happened ….

Fadel says the reason the donations have not been coming in—even though the Las Vegas massacre marked the single deadliest mass shooting in United States history—is because the attack was closely surrounded by many other devastating American calamities. She wrote:

In part, the fund may be suffering because of the back-to-back tragedies in 2017 and into 2018. … Think about it, before the shooting there was Hurricane Harvey that flooded Houston, then Irma in Florida, then Maria that devastated Puerto Rico. Right after the shooting in Las Vegas there were the fires in northern California that killed dozens, then a mass shooting in a Texas church, then more fires in southern California and fatal mudslides.

This is truly an overwhelming list of tragedies.

It’s easy to understand how the rate and severity of so many back-to-back calamities would overwhelm would-be donors. Emotionally and financially, many such individuals are drained. “Compassion fatigue is a real thing,” fundraising specialist Sandy Rees told the Los Angeles Times. “There have been so many things that happened this year,” she said. “But it does get overwhelming, and I think people start to tune out.” As a result, funds have not met expectations.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has shown that the Bible prophesies of a time when instances of tragedy for America will be occurring so near to each other that they will basically blend together. In a 2016 article called “What Really Caused the Orlando Terrorist Attack,” he quoted Hosea 4:1-2, saying:

The Bible reveals the root cause of extreme violence in the United States and throughout the modern-day nations descended from ancient Israel. The Prophet Hosea wrote that “blood toucheth blood”: There is hardly a reprieve between mass shootings these days. His warning is for this end time.

Mr. Flurry’s article is specifically addressing instances of intentional, man-made violence, such as last year’s mass shootings in Las Vegas and Texas. When weather disasters—such as the disastrous hurricanes, floods and fires that also struck America in 2017—are added to the equation, the feeling that “there is hardly a reprieve” grows even more acute.

To understand why so many overwhelming tragedies and disasters are hitting the U.S., and what the remedy for the mayhem is, read Mr. Flurry’s article “Las Vegas Massacre: Problem, Cause—and Solution.”