This day marks 10 years since the tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Not only was this one of the deadliest school shootings in American history, but it also affected me for other reasons, as well. First of all, it was relatively close geographically, as that is maybe an hour and a half (maybe less, depending on the traffic) from where I lived at the time.. Also, it targeted vey young kids. Kids who were more or less the age that my son was in back then. So it was more than a little disturbing.
Here was my original blog entry from a couple of days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which was originally published here a couple of days following the school shooting. I am republishing it here, on this somber anniversary.
Another Tragic Shooting
(published on December 16, 2012)
It has happened again. This time it was a school shooting, the worst one since the Virginia Tech massacre some years ago. This shooting on Connecticut saw more people killed than Columbine.
This is the first massive school shooting in a while, but it certainly is not the first massive shooting that we have seen recently. There may be a more tragic quality, if that is the right word, when the shooting specifically targets defenseless children, as yesterday's shooting did. But shootings themselves are nothing new, particularly in this country.
Another tragedy has us grasping and searching for answers. Indeed, more facts will come out. We have already learned more about the shooter, and his family. We will surely learn more precise details about how this attack came about, so that we can almost imagine the attack, minute by minute. We are also hearing first-hand accounts from those who were there, and that includes the children. Soon enough, we will also learn more about of the victims, and hear their stories. That much we got in the past from other shootings, such as at Columbine, at Virginia Tech, and at Aurora. This, like those other incidents, will surely satisfy our collective morbid fascination with such tragedies.
But we will not get answers. There are no answers as to why such a thing can happen.
Yet, answers are what we will hear for the next few days and weeks. Answers from people who hold all of the answers. We will hear a lot about what we must do. Already, there have been debates that I heard on the radio, and comments on Facebook. People are talking about it, and entrenching themselves once again in their old, familiar positions. Gun advocates will stay silent for a little while, perhaps. Those in favor of tightening gun laws will argue that more restrictions are needed to prevent such a tragedy, and those who are pro-guns will argue that guns don't kill people, people kill people, and that those who want guns will obtain them no matter what, legally or otherwise.
We hear other answers, as well. Over the next few days and weeks, we will hear people arguing passionately, even vehemently, in favor of their opinions on the topic. Are you for tighter gun control laws, or are you against? Is this a matter of personal liberty over attempted fascism, or have we lost our way in this nation, are we too drenched in a tidal wave of a gun culture, that our common sense has been washed away, and that we have lost our way, we cannot really see anything else as a possibility, that there is no other way?
Already, former Presidential candidate and conservative evangelical iconic personality Mike Huckabee claimed that this happened because "we've removed God from our schools." He makes no mention of abuses that have happened within religious institutions, such as the recent numerous cases with Catholic priests. His version of history would surely not include the official violence that religious institutions practiced, which is intellectually dishonest.
All of this amounts to finger pointing. Take away all of the ideas behind the arguments, and what you have amounts to finger pointing. It is as if people are saying, in effect, "If you did things my way, if you saw the world the way I see it, then these tragedies simply wouldn't happen. But you are too dense to see things my way, so these things will continue."
Then, surely, we will wonder why our nation, and indeed our world, seems more divided then ever. People will argue, and it will get heated, because people know they are right, and they know that the other who disagrees with them are wrong, and thus, their argument holds no water, has no validity.
The thing is, that itself is intolerant. We live our lives with what seems to me to be bitterness, anger. I am right, you are wrong. When that is the message that is repeated on all sides. All sides that seem to agree on nothing else seem nonetheless to agree that this is the correct approach when dealing with these problems. That is to say, they both agree that there is an answer, one definitive answer. What they disagree on is who holds that answer. Each side thinks that they hold the answer, and they try to detract from the other side, and to take away the other side's credibility.
Very quickly, these divisions lead to hate. And hate, I believe, is what helps to trigger such tragedies. I also believe that the need for validation is what drives the polarization in our society, and the need for validation of some sort or other is what seems to drive these killers towards committing mass murder. I could be wrong, but it seems that is what drove those who killed at Columbine, or at Virginia Tech, or in Michigan or Colorado earlier this year. I am guessing that is what drove the murderer yesterday in Connecticut.
So, I don't have the answers. I don't want to contribute to more hate, more anger at perceived slights of anyone's validation. I don't want to be guilty, or feel guilty, of using yesterday's tragedy to score political points, or to further political objectives.
What I do want to do is express my own fears. You see, I have a child, a son of seven years old. The children in yesterday's shootings ranged, as I understand it, from five to ten years old. This is not the first such tragedy, or the second, or third, or so on. It has happened so damn often, that I have lost count. Does anyone know the exact number of times such a thing has happened? Also, this tragedy occurred within a couple of hours drive of where I have lived for three decades now. I have unknowingly driven close to this community in the past, having driven by the exit to get there while traveling along I-84, on various trips, and for various reasons. This latest shooting is the closest that such a massive shooting has occurred to where I am. All of these factors combine to make this feel much closer to me than ever before.
President Kennedy once stated that this society is capable of feeding the starving, and to continue not only to sustain life, but to improve it the world over. Yet, he also made clear that we are capable of destroying life as we know it.
Indeed, our modern world seems capable of engineering such incredible feats, the likes of which have never been seen before. We continue to inch closer to cures for previously incurable diseases, to epic achievements in space exploration, to technology that will help make us utilize cleaner and cheap energy, to continue to produce technologies that will enhances our lives in countless ways, and improve our standard of living overall. Perhaps, we have allowed ourselves to get so wrapped up in patting ourselves in the back for these successes, that we commit the crime of losing sight of the potential dangers and pitfalls that are the flip side of these fast moving advances in our knowledge and technology. A madness that we have not been so quick to cure has not only been allowed to continue to live, but to grow like a cancer. That is the destructiveness that Kennedy spoke of back then, decades ago, and which continues to haunt us today. We seem only to react to it and acknowledge it only when we are forced to, as we were yesterday. The problem will not resolve itself unless we acknowledge that this problem actually exists, and that we need to search within ourselves in order to explore it further, and come up with answers that don't just veer towards finger pointing and blaming and belittling, as we have always done before.
The victims of such tragedies deserve a better effort than that.
I cannot imagine what the victims of the families must be going through. It is unthinkable to lose a child to something like this. Such a senseless slaughter.
Yet, I have to repeat what I have already said, because this pattern itself seems to be repeated every time something like this happens. People use these incidents, these tragedies, for their own purposes. I, for one, am starting to believe that this itself is the problem.
The media advertises the deeds of the murderers. We get to know them, their names, their stories, and the circumstances that, we are at least to believe, led them to these acts. In effect, they are glamorized for it, even if in a morbid way. Does that sound crazy? Perhaps it is, yet it certainly feels like the truth. I'll bet that this incident will trigger fears of copycats. much like other such tragedies have done. Such is the world that we live in now. Such is the world that we have created as a society, and which we all have responsibility for.
The media will mention what happened there, down to every minute detail. Before long, this one morning that surely lasted no longer than twenty minutes, thirty minutes tops, will be able to live on forever, because the media will not only bring it to life for us all, but will keep it alive.
In the meantime, those killed have lost their lives. The parents of those children had hopes for their children. They wanted to see them grow up, grow older. Go to high school, start dating. Start to focus on dressing cool, on being cool. To listen to music that the parents will surely think distasteful. To dress up for their proms. To prepare for college. To go off and get a taste of the world, and to learn for themselves some of the harsher realities of life. To be forced to face the mundane realities, such as receiving endless bills that need to get paid, and perhaps struggling to get jobs with salaries that would help them to pay those bills. Ultimately, perhaps, to have children of their own, and to continue the endless pattern of life that keeps this world going.
But none of that is possible now for those who were killed. There is some destructive element that this society possesses that is the very antithesis of the cycle of life. It is the cycle of killing off life, and it continues, strong as ever. After such incidents as this, you could easily be convinced that it is gaining strength, that the destructiveness is growing beyond all previous bounds, growing out of our control. No wonder so many of us are fascinated by the idea that the world will end on the 21st of this year - less than a week away now!
As I mentioned before, this will trigger debate. It already has, and will continue to do so. Eventually, the momentum will slow down, and the high tide of attention will slow to a trickle, until the next such incident occurs. Yet, here is one more thing that most os us in this very polarized society of ours can agree on: we all likely can agree that such a tragedy will occur again. No one knows where it will happen, or who will be the victims. But that it will happen again, few of us have any real doubts. Am I wrong?
Now, I mentioned the physical proximity already. The danger seems more real than ever. I hate to think about the possibility that it could happen evne closer, perhaps even in the community where my son attends school, or sometimes goes to the local theater, or mall, or restaurant, or wherever else he sometimes goes. But the truth is, that I am now, more than ever, forced to think about the real possibility that something like this can occur. I don't want to, certainly. But how can anyone not think about it? How can anyone not worry about it?
I don't know when or where it will happen. No one knows when the next time will be, or how many victims, or the precise circumstances that will trigger one young person (most likely a young, white, loner male, based on the history of past such incidents) to completely lose it, and go on a rampage.
What I do know is that, for many in Newtown, Connecticut, the upcoming holiday season will not be a time for celebration. The upcoming new year will be the first in which they will have to adjust to life without their loved ones lost. There will likely be no celebrations for them.
What I also know is that I do not want to use their loss for my gain. I am not interested in scoring political points by using this tragedy to advance my own positions. There has been too much pointing of fingers, too much blame.
On the morning of the shooting, I got out of my night job, and walked to my car early in the morning - about one hour and a half or so before the shooting began, to my understanding. It was surprisingly cold out, and felt like winter.
I went about my business, and was just pulling up to my parent's home when the news first broke on the radio that there had been some kind of an incident, a shooting, in Connecticut. It had been in a school, and three people had been hospitalized. I am ashamed to admit that I heard that and thought, well, it doesn't sound like it was that big of a deal, like Aurora, or some of the other shootings. It had been about 32 hours since the big concert that I attended, and there was still a glow from that. The shooting was tragic, but since it seemed, when I first heard about it, to not have been a fatal shooting, I did not think about it too much.
In fact, it was worse than Aurora. Worse than many other shootings that have occurred, and more shocking specifically because it targeted young children. It is not excusable to target adults, or anybody, indiscriminately. But somehow, it seems all the lower to kill young children. Perhaps I am mistaken about this, but it seems that some of these crimes are designed specifically for the shock value of the thing, so that the killer can make a name for himself. We all seem to remember the names of the shooters afterwards, much like we remember the names of the worst criminals in history. Look at all the programs on the History Channel about Hitler, or how often Nazis make appearances in movies. How often do we truly hear about the victims?
The name of the man who did this has already been revealed, and now, we will learn much more about him. We heard all about the shooter in Aurora, and the shooter in Arizona, and the shooters in Littleton. But other than Congresswoman Giffords, who has a certain celebrity status, we heard almost nothing in the long term about the victims. Perhaps, our society that honors celebrities, good and bad, is part of the problem, as well.
I return to the morning of the shooting. As the day progressed and the temperatures grew warmer, it became clear that the scope of the shooting was getting bigger and bigger. Suddenly, the level of seriousness was epic, and it was all over the news. Every radio station mentioned something about it, and it was obviously a huge deal. The glow from the concert was forgotten, and now, suddenly, things like the concert, or other petty concerns of mine from everyday life, seemed somehow unimportant. Now, all I wanted to do was see my child, my son. To look at his bright, happy eyes, and know that he is safe and sound. To give him a hug, and tell him that he means the world to me, which I usually do.
The weather has been mild these last few days, but the nights and early mornings are cool, even cold. I don't know if we will have as mild a winter as we did last year, but for many people associated with Newtown, Connecticut, it will be a cold winter indeed. Instead of joy for the holiday season, they are left with heartbreak. Hope for the future of twenty young ones has been extinguished, replaced by pain and loss. There is no joy in Sandy Hook right now. Despite all of the answers that people have given about these kinds of issues in the past, despite the answers that plenty of people, like Mr. Huckabee, are offering right now, all that these people are left with is pain, and a lot of questions without answers. So many questions, and surely, we will hear more answers, and those spoken definitively. But right now, I have no answers. Somehow, I get the feeling that even those who answer the loudest, and seem most sure of their answers, will only be left with more questions to answer in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment