The Atlantic

My Life Since the 2012 Sikh Temple Shooting: Pardeep Singh Kaleka's Story

"Sandy Hook happened about four months after our shooting. And ... nothing really changed. Not enough to make up for the human suffering. But I do feel hopeful."
Source: Darren Hauck / Reuters

Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of conversations with those who have survived high-profile shootings or lost loved ones to them. The other interviews, as well as background about the series, can be found here.

On August 5, 2012, a white supremacist killed six worshippers in the Sikh temple of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, including Satwant Singh Kaleka, the temple’s president. Satwant’s son, Pardeep, narrowly missed the violence, having turned back home that day to pick up a notebook his daughter had forgotten there.

Pardeep Singh Kaleka understands many sides of the debate over guns, as a former police officer, schoolteacher, and, for three of the six years since his father’s death, a trauma therapist. Just two months after the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Just One Problem With Gun Buybacks
One warm North Carolina fall morning, a platoon of Durham County Sheriff’s Office employees was enjoying an exhibit of historical firearms in a church parking lot. They were on duty, tasked with running a gun buyback, an event at which citizens can t
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Return of the John Birch Society
Michael Smart chuckled as he thought back to their banishment. Truthfully he couldn’t say for sure what the problem had been, why it was that in 2012, the John Birch Society—the far-right organization historically steeped in conspiracism and oppositi

Related Books & Audiobooks