"All These People Shooting Each Other," I called it.
The first thing that's on my homepage is Google. Okay. Normal. But I also make it a habit to open Yahoo after Google. I don't use yahoo to search, just the front news page.
And every day, swimming out from the little icons in bright purple lettering prancing across the website home page: death. shooting. killed. fatality.
Recently there have been several high profile cases, like the Aurora one, the Walmart one just a few days ago, and the one in the Oregon mall just several hours ago.
What kind of sick bastard goes into an elementary school with a gun? What kind of twisted person would do something like that?
In today's world political correctness is emphasized. There is importance put under not passing judgment. We preach tolerance like it is its own religion and we try to be accepting. Anti-bullying, anti-discrimination, pro-equality. Any other day, any other circumstances, I would strive to meet every one of those conditions. I would strive to follow every one of those pocket rules to being a better person. But not today.
Today, I am judgmental.
Today, I am judging the shooter. Media has reported that he was not diagnosed as mentally ill, but displayed characteristics and was a recluse with a troubled mind. His killing spree was not cold nor calculated. It was full out angst triggered massacre. Adam Lanza would have known he had a problem. He should have.
Today, I am judging the mother. No one needs two assault weapons but the police. One, I'm okay with if you're using it for hunting or for some twisted method of self protection. Or even if you're collecting them but not buying rounds of ammunition for them or firing them. But loaded firearms? In a tiny little place like Newtown, Connecticut? Nancy Lanza did not need to semiautomatic rifles. No one does.
Today, I am judging America's lax gun policies. I personally think self-defense is important, and we do bear a right to carry firearms. But we have absolutely no need to carry assault rifles. We really don't. We're not shooting a bunch of resilient things at once when we exercise our right to bear arms. We're exercising self defense. I'm all for hand guns. But I can't help but think that those other countries with so few deaths caused by gun violence, many of them amounting to a total less than a single recent US massacre, I can't help but think that they're doing something right. America, we're missing something.
Today, I am not a person with a concrete moral compass. I am a sad person. This could have been in my town, in my school. It could have been my friends dead, my teachers smushing us into cupboards to stay alive, or in a nightmare of all nightmares, it could have been my little sister's daycare.
Today, I am a scared person. Newtown is just like Cary, but smaller. We think Cary is safe. We rarely have major crime. Cary in the top cities to live in the country and we have incredible cops. But we're not safe, not really. No one is.
Today, I am reading the news. I am keeping up with each development they have. I want to know why this happened. Who this shrouded in a cloud of mystery killer is. Why things like Aurora and Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech and Columbine and Clackamas Town Center happen. Why the United States averages twenty mass shootings a year, yet other countries sometimes don't even reach twenty gun violence deaths a year.
Today, and tomorrow, and the next, I want answers.
But first. Today we honor the victims. We honor the heroes, we honor the innocent lives lost. We think of angelic little ones, with bouncing ponytails and curious, bright, shining eyes. We remember that they were people, they were children. They are not just corpses, not just target practice for a sick man. Today we remember they were people, and today we wish all the best in recovery for the town.
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| The names were released by the Connecticut State Police today. All the kids were either six or seven years old. Such beautiful lives, filled with promises of longevity and love and happiness, just ended. |
