It’s been more than two weeks since the shooting in Thousand Oaks and as the holiday season begins, it’s difficult not to think of the victims and their families who will live with this tragedy for the rest of their lives.
Bob Weiss lost a child to another mass shooting in Isla Vista four years ago. He knows all too well what the survivors of the Borderline shooting and the grieving families are suffering through.
Veronika Weiss was just 19 years old and a freshman at UC Santa Barbara. She and her sorority sisters were walking through the college town of Isla Vista when a gunman shot them down. Weiss was one of six students killed that night on May 23, 2014.
Her father received a phone call from one of her sorority sisters asking if she had called her parents that night, like she did every other night. Weiss said no. His daughter’s friend told him there had just been a shooting and the sorority was trying to do a headcount. Weiss and his wife immediately left their Thousand Oaks home and headed north to Isla Vista.
Their first stop was a hospital in town to check if their daughter had been admitted. They were told to go to Isla Vista. There, the couple waited for hours until a preacher told them the news they had been dreading to learn. Their daughter Veronika was gone.
“It’s right on the edge of our minds at all times. It’s not quite painful to remember as it was four years ago, but it’s still a constant source of sadness,” said Weiss.
He is forced to relive the worst night of his life every time another mass shooting occurs. It was particularly hard for him to handle it when he heard about the 12 people who were killed at the Borderline Bar and Grill. The Weiss’ have called Thousand Oaks home for almost 20 years. Their daughter and two sons grew up there.
“There’s shootings all the time, but this one was merely 1.5 miles away from our house. It was very upsetting to all of us,” said Weiss.
The grieving father swung by the still-growing makeshift memorial for the Borderline victims a couple times. It reminded him of the memorial in Isla Vista.
“Somewhere in my DNA there’s some mechanism. I’m built to withstand this even though I wish I was dead. There’s a reason for me to survive. There are tools that help me stay alive. I need to stay alive for my wife and my other two kids,” said Weiss.
He’s done much more than stay alive.
“It occurred to me that instead of turning all these reporters away that were knocking on our door that I might be able to make some difference by talking about the pain I feel and the terrible state we’re in as far as our terrible gun safety laws in this country,” said Weiss.
He says he wishes he knew something encouraging to say to survivors of mass shootings. Weiss says it’s going to be their journey and they’ll cope the way they’re meant to. For the Weiss’, they’ve decided to sell their Thousand Oaks home to move to a different state. Weiss says every little thing reminds him of his daughter and they’re ready for a change of scenery.
They’ll take their sweet memories of their daughter with them to their new home.
Weiss is retired, but serves as an advocate for the National Compassion Fund organization. The fund provides a safe and transparent way for the public to give directly to the victims of mass casualty crimes, including shootings and terrorist attacks. For more information, please visit: www.nationalcompassionfund.org.