The police officer held an AR-style rifle as he stood against a streetlight pole on the busy sidewalk. He quietly watched people walk past him during a heavily crowded festival Saturday in my Indiana city.

The familiar image these days caught my attention. I stood behind him for a few minutes to see if other people noticed or cared. Or if they were oblivious to such sights in our troubled country of mass shootings and killings. Not many people gave the officer a second look. I’m sure some of them noticed.

This the norm in America now, whether we like it or not.

As I took a photo of that scenario, I flashed back to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City. I drove to the Ground Zero site a few days after the attack to write a series of stories.

My first memory from that vi

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