Unless you've literally been hiding under a rock, you are aware of the latest massacre of innocent victims by a gun-wielding, mentally unstable man that happened on Friday, December 14th. Yet another unspeakable tragedy, that we have to talk about. This latest incident left 20 first graders and seven adults, plus the gunman, dead.This is going to be one of those times when everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I only hope that it leads to real change that will prevent this from happening again.
I found out about it while trying to get in a little Christmas shopping after a lunch meeting. Normally, I start working at about 7:30 in the morning. I turn on the computer, make coffee. I scan the headlines on the BBC News and check emails while the coffee is brewing. Then I plan my day while drinking my first cup of coffee. Usually around 8 or 8:15 I'll turn on NPR and listen to the news while I work on the computer and do paperwork until about 1 or 1:30. That's when I pack up items to ship, photo new ones, do cataloging and write up descriptions for items to be posted at my online shop, do repairs, etc.
Friday, for some reason, I just didn't want to hear the news. The carnage in Syria and the horrible working conditions in Bangladesh garment factories was depressing and that didn't even begin to cover it all. Combined with the weirdly warm and dreary weather we've been having here in Southeastern Michigan this December, I was struggling to get into the Christmas Spirit. So Friday morning, I just plugged in my Ipod and listened to Christmas carols instead of the news, which kept me in blissful ignorance for a few more hours.
I had a lunch meeting scheduled for Friday, so I knocked off my computer and paperwork earlier than usual. Usually I listen to NPR in the car too, but that day I chose a Christmas CD. I was actually in a pretty good mood and starting to feel a little festive by the time I got to my meeting. After the meeting I decided to take a couple of hours and try to get some Christmas shopping done.
It was my second stop when I found out that everyone's morning hadn't been equally nice. The man in line behind me had a phone call. "Hi Mom," he said, "I can't really talk right now. . . what? Oh, my God, that's awful! Where? Connecticut?" He was quiet for a minute then said, "Mom, I'll call you back." He got off the phone and looked so shaken that I couldn't help but ask him if he was all right (normally I do not talk to people I don't know about their private conversations, even if they're making it all but impossible not to eavesdrop, which he wasn't, we were just in very close proximity).
"Another school shooting just happened," he said. "Somewhere in Connecticut, a bunch of little kids." I felt sick to my stomach and I don't remember what I said. He then said, "I am a gun rights activist, but there have to be limits, there has to be common sense involved." I have no idea who this man was and wouldn't recognize him if I came face to face with him again, but his comment and obvious horror resonated with me. I must have responded, but I have no idea what I said and although I must have paid for my items, as I now have a bag with a receipt, I don't remember it.
Once back in the car I immediately turned the radio on, searching for news stations. I sat there for I don't know how long before I felt like I could drive. At that point, instead of the other errands I had planned to run, I drove home. I turned on the radio and tried to work. I couldn't and found myself in front of the TV, in shock, crying as I watched the footage, which was pretty much running in a loop as there wasn't much information available at the time.
Now, bear in mind, nothing actually happened to me or anyone I know, for which I thank God. I don't have family in Connecticut, I don't have friends in Connecticut. I know no one in the entire state to my knowledge. Yet, this horrible event left me feeling traumatized and depressed. More so than when terrorists attacked the US on 9-11 and I had a friend who died in the Twin Towers. Why? Why this particular heinous act, only the latest in an ongoing series? I've been thinking about it for days now.
Partly, I think, because it was small children who were killed. Also, the community it took place in looks an awful lot like the one we live in now, the place where my children grew up and like the places I grew up as well. Watching footage unfold took me back to the days after Columbine happened, the first mass shooting in what would turn out to be an ongoing parade of horrific events involving guns and the mentally ill here in the US. I grew up in the Denver area, I knew kids who went to Columbine when I was at another area high school. I knew the school, I had been in that school for athletic events many times and I was horrified when it happened, picturing the inside of the school as I had seen it last.
When Columbine happened, I had a four year old and a seven year old. For months I struggled every day as I dropped them off at school, praying they would be safe and trying to act normally so I didn't scare them. I know I wasn't the only parent to feel that way and it's a feeling that has never really stopped, for any of us. It also had a huge effect on our children, something I'll go into more later. One of Friday's victims closely resembled pictures of my daughter at the same age, bringing back the fear I had felt at the time, a fear that is back now, as I watched my 20 year old drive off to take his last two finals yesterday and dropped my 17 year old off at high school. I don't imagine it's a fear that is going to go away any time soon.
So why, at that time, did we let it go? Why did we, the American people and parents of children, after that horrible day that left fifteen people dead and 21 injured, decide to live with the nagging uncertainty, the knowledge in the back of our heads, that this could happen again, anytime, anywhere? What were we thinking? How could we not have acted decisively then? I believe that part of it was the hope that this was just a horrible aberration, something awful but so rare that it couldn't possibly happen again. But it did. Part of it also came from fear, fear of losing gun rights for some and fear of alienating friends and co-workers (campaign donors for politicians). Pathetic, really, isn't it?
Only a few months later, in July, a day trader in Atlanta killed twelve people, including his family, and injured another thirteen before killing himself.
In September of that same year, a man in Ft. Worth, Texas opened fire at a Christian Rock concert, killing seven teenagers and injuring another seven before taking his own life.
I could go on as similar mass shootings have taken place at an increasing rate since then, ten more times, with deaths from each incident ranging from four to 18, up until April of 2007. That was when a mentally ill student at Virginia Tech shot 56 people, killing 32 of them, before turning the gun on himself. You would think that incident, with its horrifying death toll, finally would have galvanized us to make a change, but no. It was easier to just move on, forget. Spout off a bit and then let it fade away, which is what we did.
Since students and teachers at Virginia Tech were massacred in 2007, there have been another NINETEEN mass shooting incidents - not including the one this past Friday. People, we have to wake up.None of these incidents are including the innocents killed by stray bullets in our inner cities, people, usually children and teens, killed by accidental discharges and those killed by gun crime. There have been 31 school shootings alone in the US since the Columbine massacre. The rest of the world combined has had 14, including countries torn by civil war.
Approximately 85 people here in the United States are killed by guns, EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you don't think this is a problem, well, you are the problem.We've all heard the (stupid) saying frequently trotted out by frothing at the mouth pro-gun activists to refute any calls for gun control, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well, duh. However, regardless of how homicidally inclined a person may be, if they don't have access to a gun, it's going to be much harder for them to kill other people. Yes, if someone is really determined to kill others, they will probably find a way, but they won't be able to take nearly as many lives as quickly.
We need to stop stigmatizing those with mental illness and make sure there are resources where parents and individuals can get help, without fear of being demonized. That is another conversation, because the thing is, even if someone is mentally ill, angry at the world and determined to kill, without access to guns and weapons of mass destruction, the carnage is going to be limited. If that sounds cold, well, it is. Any loss of life is too much, so doesn't it make sense to make it harder to get weapons that kill more people more easily?
So can't we please, lose the rhetoric and use some common sense? We need to talk, like grown-ups, without the rhetoric and without the political points system in play. This is not a game. We need to protect our citizens and our children, from ourselves and the culture of violence we have created. That's what grown-ups are supposed to do. It's time for serious, rational conversations about gun control. Some of the ridiculous comments made by pro-gun nuts (who do their cause no good by sounding like ignorant idiots) don't deserve acknowledgement and I am certainly not going to respond to irrational statements made by those of questionable sanity and obviously no compassion or common sense.
My Dad was a police officer when I was a child, I grew up around guns. I know how to use them and I am a pretty decent shot. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for guns, although I don't own any nor do I want to. My Dad not only had trigger locks on his guns (which were never kept loaded), but also kept them in a gun safe which was kept in a separate storage room, also locked. Ammunition was not kept near the guns. He taught us all about gun safety and stressed over and over again, that they were not toys. I grew up aware of guns but not afraid of them.
It is not realistic to expect to pass stringent gun control laws here in the US like those in Canada or the UK. I not only recognize that, I support the right of responsible, thoroughly vetted adults to own a handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most gun owners are responsible, rational people who follow the law and take steps to keep guns away from children and others. Most. It is far to easy to gain access to guns. We need to have some serious, realistic requirements and screenings in place for those who want to own guns. We need to get serious about cracking down on illegal weapons and those who profit off of them. We need to stop letting the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies dictate our national gun policy. Our legislative bodies need to stop being intimidated and/or funded by the NRA (problems with lobbying and special interests is a whole 'nother discussion as well), and we need to be vocal about letting them know we expect this.
We also need to take a serious look at the types of weapons we own as citizens and recognize that there are times individual rights have to take a back seat to public safety and the public good. It is the same reason we have traffic laws. We need to be realistic about the 2nd amendment. It was never intended to protect assault weapon ownership. Automatic and semi automatic assault weapons hadn't even been conceptualized at the time. Nor was the 2nd Amendment intended to promote anarchy, which is what a society with no gun control at all looks like.Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right and it should be earned and given only to those who pass stringent requirements. It's harder to get a drivers license than it is to buy a gun and this is very, very wrong.
I was listening to an NPR program yesterday, which, of course, was addressing the mass murder that took place on Friday. One of the callers was a soldier, just back from Afghanistan. I can't quote her exactly, but this is the gist of what she said, "The guns he had (referring to the shooter in Friday's tragedy) are the same ones we used in Afghanistan. Those guns are not for hunting and they are not for target shooting. Those guns are for killing people. That is all they are for. No one who is not in a war needs to have one of those guns." If a soldier who just came back from a war can see it, why can't we, as a nation?
No private citizen needs to have an assault weapon and it's ridiculous for anyone to claim otherwise. We require background checks and mental evaluations before we let people become law enforcement officers and before they are allowed to join the military. These are the people we train and rely on to protect us, the ones we give guns to, expecting them to be responsible and keep us safe. Why, then, do we let anyone walk into a gun show and plunk down cash for an automatic weapon? Really? Have we lost even the slightest, most tenuous of grips on sanity and common sense?
We need to look at our response to these tragedies and pressure the media to report responsibly, not sensationally. Stop trumpeting the names of these sick individuals, refuse to give them the recognition they crave. We've been told, over and over again, that this kind of notoriety can actually spark similar impulses in individuals teetering on the edge of mental illness. For that reason, I refuse to name the gunman or any others and give them any further publicity. Perhaps if everyone, including the media, refused to acknowledge their existence, others wouldn't be so motivated to repeat or exceed the horrific exploits.
We also need to take a good look at ourselves and our entertainment. The studies correlating a relationship between seeing violence, whether in video games, movies or on TV and subsequent violent behavior and desensitization to violence are so numerous you don't have to look very hard to find them. I am just as guilty as anyone and it's something I am going to give some serious thought to. I don't watch a lot of TV, but one of my favorites is Sons of Anarchy, probably one of the most violent shows on TV. So yes, how much responsibility do I, do all of us, bear for our current situation?
I mentioned earlier the effect all these mass shootings have had on our children. My youngest daughter was four when the Columbine massacre took place. Both she and my son while appalled and horrified by what happened this past Friday at the Elementary School, were not surprised. "Mom, I don't think we see it the same way you do," she tried to explain to me. "This is normal to us, it is just something that happens."
I thought about it and it makes sense. It also makes me sad and angry. This is what they know. They grew up with Columbine, with mall shootings, with 9-11. They grew up in schools that have regular drills about what to do in case a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist storms the school. To me and I think anyone who became an adult before April of 1999, this latest incident, along with all of those that have happened before it, is shocking. It is wrong, it is not normal. Maybe that's it, to us, the adults for the past 15 years, we haven't been able to believe it would happen again. We were so wrong and as a result, this shocking anomaly of random gun violence is part of life to our children.
I grew up with fire drills and drills that taught us to hide under a desk in case of a nuclear attack. Even in 2nd grade I knew how stupid that was. My 2nd grade teacher told us that white would reflect the radiation better than other colors. I wore white for months, all the while knowing in my head that if Russia did drop a nuclear bomb on us, hiding under a desk and wearing white wouldn't help. I think about that tiny thread of fear that lived under everything I did for years, multiplied a thousand times for our children. Has it hardened them, desensitized them to the horror of these types of attacks? I think it has, they have had to become somewhat inured in order to function. Our children grow up seeing real violence unfold around them, to kids just like them. Their drills are not for something that will probably never happen, these things do happen, regularly. Our children know it, they know they could be next. How can that not affect the way they see the world?
I find this casual acceptance of knowing that they, their school, could be targeted at any time by a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist to be almost as horrifying as the violence. I also find it heartbreaking because I, too, know it could happen. Psychological experts can and have expounded at great length on the effect of this knowledge. After all, it's very like that experienced by children growing up in a war zone. That is what we have given our children as a result of our failure to act after the first of these horrifying events. We have provided them with a world in which, here, in the USA, regardless of whether they live in a wealthy suburb or in the south side of Chicago, our children grow up with the emotional stresses of living in a war zone.
If you're reading this, are you proud? As parents in the United States, we provide our children with cell phones, designer jeans, laptops and cars. The vast majority of us do everything we can to keep our children healthy and safe. We make them sit in car seats, we feed them vegetables, we supervise homework, as a group, we pay millions of dollars per year for them to participate in various lessons and sports activities.
Unfortunately, we have also provided them with the emotional effects of growing up in a combat zone. Our children deserve better than this. God only knows what effect this will have on their future and the future of our nation. Isn't it time we did something about it? I cannot after this latest atrocity spend any time talking about how horrible it is before letting it fade and moving on with my life. No, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing from here, but I know I have to do something so I can like the person I see in the mirror every day. I'm hoping that you will do the same, because that is the only way things will change. We, The People, have to not just talk, we have to act.
Sources:
http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=166§ionid=1068
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2070226/Violent-homes-effect-brains-children-combat-does-soldiers.html
http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/vol9no3Art3.pdf by JD Osofsky - 1999 - Louisiana State University Health Sciences
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2529/Violence-Children-s-Exposure-COMMUNITY-VIOLENCE.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/americas-deadly-devotion-guns
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337221/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine/?mobile=nc
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454
I found out about it while trying to get in a little Christmas shopping after a lunch meeting. Normally, I start working at about 7:30 in the morning. I turn on the computer, make coffee. I scan the headlines on the BBC News and check emails while the coffee is brewing. Then I plan my day while drinking my first cup of coffee. Usually around 8 or 8:15 I'll turn on NPR and listen to the news while I work on the computer and do paperwork until about 1 or 1:30. That's when I pack up items to ship, photo new ones, do cataloging and write up descriptions for items to be posted at my online shop, do repairs, etc.
Friday, for some reason, I just didn't want to hear the news. The carnage in Syria and the horrible working conditions in Bangladesh garment factories was depressing and that didn't even begin to cover it all. Combined with the weirdly warm and dreary weather we've been having here in Southeastern Michigan this December, I was struggling to get into the Christmas Spirit. So Friday morning, I just plugged in my Ipod and listened to Christmas carols instead of the news, which kept me in blissful ignorance for a few more hours.
I had a lunch meeting scheduled for Friday, so I knocked off my computer and paperwork earlier than usual. Usually I listen to NPR in the car too, but that day I chose a Christmas CD. I was actually in a pretty good mood and starting to feel a little festive by the time I got to my meeting. After the meeting I decided to take a couple of hours and try to get some Christmas shopping done.
It was my second stop when I found out that everyone's morning hadn't been equally nice. The man in line behind me had a phone call. "Hi Mom," he said, "I can't really talk right now. . . what? Oh, my God, that's awful! Where? Connecticut?" He was quiet for a minute then said, "Mom, I'll call you back." He got off the phone and looked so shaken that I couldn't help but ask him if he was all right (normally I do not talk to people I don't know about their private conversations, even if they're making it all but impossible not to eavesdrop, which he wasn't, we were just in very close proximity).
"Another school shooting just happened," he said. "Somewhere in Connecticut, a bunch of little kids." I felt sick to my stomach and I don't remember what I said. He then said, "I am a gun rights activist, but there have to be limits, there has to be common sense involved." I have no idea who this man was and wouldn't recognize him if I came face to face with him again, but his comment and obvious horror resonated with me. I must have responded, but I have no idea what I said and although I must have paid for my items, as I now have a bag with a receipt, I don't remember it.
Once back in the car I immediately turned the radio on, searching for news stations. I sat there for I don't know how long before I felt like I could drive. At that point, instead of the other errands I had planned to run, I drove home. I turned on the radio and tried to work. I couldn't and found myself in front of the TV, in shock, crying as I watched the footage, which was pretty much running in a loop as there wasn't much information available at the time.
Now, bear in mind, nothing actually happened to me or anyone I know, for which I thank God. I don't have family in Connecticut, I don't have friends in Connecticut. I know no one in the entire state to my knowledge. Yet, this horrible event left me feeling traumatized and depressed. More so than when terrorists attacked the US on 9-11 and I had a friend who died in the Twin Towers. Why? Why this particular heinous act, only the latest in an ongoing series? I've been thinking about it for days now.
Partly, I think, because it was small children who were killed. Also, the community it took place in looks an awful lot like the one we live in now, the place where my children grew up and like the places I grew up as well. Watching footage unfold took me back to the days after Columbine happened, the first mass shooting in what would turn out to be an ongoing parade of horrific events involving guns and the mentally ill here in the US. I grew up in the Denver area, I knew kids who went to Columbine when I was at another area high school. I knew the school, I had been in that school for athletic events many times and I was horrified when it happened, picturing the inside of the school as I had seen it last.
When Columbine happened, I had a four year old and a seven year old. For months I struggled every day as I dropped them off at school, praying they would be safe and trying to act normally so I didn't scare them. I know I wasn't the only parent to feel that way and it's a feeling that has never really stopped, for any of us. It also had a huge effect on our children, something I'll go into more later. One of Friday's victims closely resembled pictures of my daughter at the same age, bringing back the fear I had felt at the time, a fear that is back now, as I watched my 20 year old drive off to take his last two finals yesterday and dropped my 17 year old off at high school. I don't imagine it's a fear that is going to go away any time soon.
So why, at that time, did we let it go? Why did we, the American people and parents of children, after that horrible day that left fifteen people dead and 21 injured, decide to live with the nagging uncertainty, the knowledge in the back of our heads, that this could happen again, anytime, anywhere? What were we thinking? How could we not have acted decisively then? I believe that part of it was the hope that this was just a horrible aberration, something awful but so rare that it couldn't possibly happen again. But it did. Part of it also came from fear, fear of losing gun rights for some and fear of alienating friends and co-workers (campaign donors for politicians). Pathetic, really, isn't it?
Only a few months later, in July, a day trader in Atlanta killed twelve people, including his family, and injured another thirteen before killing himself.
In September of that same year, a man in Ft. Worth, Texas opened fire at a Christian Rock concert, killing seven teenagers and injuring another seven before taking his own life.
I could go on as similar mass shootings have taken place at an increasing rate since then, ten more times, with deaths from each incident ranging from four to 18, up until April of 2007. That was when a mentally ill student at Virginia Tech shot 56 people, killing 32 of them, before turning the gun on himself. You would think that incident, with its horrifying death toll, finally would have galvanized us to make a change, but no. It was easier to just move on, forget. Spout off a bit and then let it fade away, which is what we did.
Since students and teachers at Virginia Tech were massacred in 2007, there have been another NINETEEN mass shooting incidents - not including the one this past Friday. People, we have to wake up.None of these incidents are including the innocents killed by stray bullets in our inner cities, people, usually children and teens, killed by accidental discharges and those killed by gun crime. There have been 31 school shootings alone in the US since the Columbine massacre. The rest of the world combined has had 14, including countries torn by civil war.
Approximately 85 people here in the United States are killed by guns, EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you don't think this is a problem, well, you are the problem.We've all heard the (stupid) saying frequently trotted out by frothing at the mouth pro-gun activists to refute any calls for gun control, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well, duh. However, regardless of how homicidally inclined a person may be, if they don't have access to a gun, it's going to be much harder for them to kill other people. Yes, if someone is really determined to kill others, they will probably find a way, but they won't be able to take nearly as many lives as quickly.
We need to stop stigmatizing those with mental illness and make sure there are resources where parents and individuals can get help, without fear of being demonized. That is another conversation, because the thing is, even if someone is mentally ill, angry at the world and determined to kill, without access to guns and weapons of mass destruction, the carnage is going to be limited. If that sounds cold, well, it is. Any loss of life is too much, so doesn't it make sense to make it harder to get weapons that kill more people more easily?
So can't we please, lose the rhetoric and use some common sense? We need to talk, like grown-ups, without the rhetoric and without the political points system in play. This is not a game. We need to protect our citizens and our children, from ourselves and the culture of violence we have created. That's what grown-ups are supposed to do. It's time for serious, rational conversations about gun control. Some of the ridiculous comments made by pro-gun nuts (who do their cause no good by sounding like ignorant idiots) don't deserve acknowledgement and I am certainly not going to respond to irrational statements made by those of questionable sanity and obviously no compassion or common sense.
My Dad was a police officer when I was a child, I grew up around guns. I know how to use them and I am a pretty decent shot. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for guns, although I don't own any nor do I want to. My Dad not only had trigger locks on his guns (which were never kept loaded), but also kept them in a gun safe which was kept in a separate storage room, also locked. Ammunition was not kept near the guns. He taught us all about gun safety and stressed over and over again, that they were not toys. I grew up aware of guns but not afraid of them.
It is not realistic to expect to pass stringent gun control laws here in the US like those in Canada or the UK. I not only recognize that, I support the right of responsible, thoroughly vetted adults to own a handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most gun owners are responsible, rational people who follow the law and take steps to keep guns away from children and others. Most. It is far to easy to gain access to guns. We need to have some serious, realistic requirements and screenings in place for those who want to own guns. We need to get serious about cracking down on illegal weapons and those who profit off of them. We need to stop letting the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies dictate our national gun policy. Our legislative bodies need to stop being intimidated and/or funded by the NRA (problems with lobbying and special interests is a whole 'nother discussion as well), and we need to be vocal about letting them know we expect this.
We also need to take a serious look at the types of weapons we own as citizens and recognize that there are times individual rights have to take a back seat to public safety and the public good. It is the same reason we have traffic laws. We need to be realistic about the 2nd amendment. It was never intended to protect assault weapon ownership. Automatic and semi automatic assault weapons hadn't even been conceptualized at the time. Nor was the 2nd Amendment intended to promote anarchy, which is what a society with no gun control at all looks like.Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right and it should be earned and given only to those who pass stringent requirements. It's harder to get a drivers license than it is to buy a gun and this is very, very wrong.
I was listening to an NPR program yesterday, which, of course, was addressing the mass murder that took place on Friday. One of the callers was a soldier, just back from Afghanistan. I can't quote her exactly, but this is the gist of what she said, "The guns he had (referring to the shooter in Friday's tragedy) are the same ones we used in Afghanistan. Those guns are not for hunting and they are not for target shooting. Those guns are for killing people. That is all they are for. No one who is not in a war needs to have one of those guns." If a soldier who just came back from a war can see it, why can't we, as a nation?
No private citizen needs to have an assault weapon and it's ridiculous for anyone to claim otherwise. We require background checks and mental evaluations before we let people become law enforcement officers and before they are allowed to join the military. These are the people we train and rely on to protect us, the ones we give guns to, expecting them to be responsible and keep us safe. Why, then, do we let anyone walk into a gun show and plunk down cash for an automatic weapon? Really? Have we lost even the slightest, most tenuous of grips on sanity and common sense?
We need to look at our response to these tragedies and pressure the media to report responsibly, not sensationally. Stop trumpeting the names of these sick individuals, refuse to give them the recognition they crave. We've been told, over and over again, that this kind of notoriety can actually spark similar impulses in individuals teetering on the edge of mental illness. For that reason, I refuse to name the gunman or any others and give them any further publicity. Perhaps if everyone, including the media, refused to acknowledge their existence, others wouldn't be so motivated to repeat or exceed the horrific exploits.
We also need to take a good look at ourselves and our entertainment. The studies correlating a relationship between seeing violence, whether in video games, movies or on TV and subsequent violent behavior and desensitization to violence are so numerous you don't have to look very hard to find them. I am just as guilty as anyone and it's something I am going to give some serious thought to. I don't watch a lot of TV, but one of my favorites is Sons of Anarchy, probably one of the most violent shows on TV. So yes, how much responsibility do I, do all of us, bear for our current situation?
I mentioned earlier the effect all these mass shootings have had on our children. My youngest daughter was four when the Columbine massacre took place. Both she and my son while appalled and horrified by what happened this past Friday at the Elementary School, were not surprised. "Mom, I don't think we see it the same way you do," she tried to explain to me. "This is normal to us, it is just something that happens."
I thought about it and it makes sense. It also makes me sad and angry. This is what they know. They grew up with Columbine, with mall shootings, with 9-11. They grew up in schools that have regular drills about what to do in case a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist storms the school. To me and I think anyone who became an adult before April of 1999, this latest incident, along with all of those that have happened before it, is shocking. It is wrong, it is not normal. Maybe that's it, to us, the adults for the past 15 years, we haven't been able to believe it would happen again. We were so wrong and as a result, this shocking anomaly of random gun violence is part of life to our children.
I grew up with fire drills and drills that taught us to hide under a desk in case of a nuclear attack. Even in 2nd grade I knew how stupid that was. My 2nd grade teacher told us that white would reflect the radiation better than other colors. I wore white for months, all the while knowing in my head that if Russia did drop a nuclear bomb on us, hiding under a desk and wearing white wouldn't help. I think about that tiny thread of fear that lived under everything I did for years, multiplied a thousand times for our children. Has it hardened them, desensitized them to the horror of these types of attacks? I think it has, they have had to become somewhat inured in order to function. Our children grow up seeing real violence unfold around them, to kids just like them. Their drills are not for something that will probably never happen, these things do happen, regularly. Our children know it, they know they could be next. How can that not affect the way they see the world?
I find this casual acceptance of knowing that they, their school, could be targeted at any time by a crazy person with a gun or a terrorist to be almost as horrifying as the violence. I also find it heartbreaking because I, too, know it could happen. Psychological experts can and have expounded at great length on the effect of this knowledge. After all, it's very like that experienced by children growing up in a war zone. That is what we have given our children as a result of our failure to act after the first of these horrifying events. We have provided them with a world in which, here, in the USA, regardless of whether they live in a wealthy suburb or in the south side of Chicago, our children grow up with the emotional stresses of living in a war zone.
If you're reading this, are you proud? As parents in the United States, we provide our children with cell phones, designer jeans, laptops and cars. The vast majority of us do everything we can to keep our children healthy and safe. We make them sit in car seats, we feed them vegetables, we supervise homework, as a group, we pay millions of dollars per year for them to participate in various lessons and sports activities.
Unfortunately, we have also provided them with the emotional effects of growing up in a combat zone. Our children deserve better than this. God only knows what effect this will have on their future and the future of our nation. Isn't it time we did something about it? I cannot after this latest atrocity spend any time talking about how horrible it is before letting it fade and moving on with my life. No, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing from here, but I know I have to do something so I can like the person I see in the mirror every day. I'm hoping that you will do the same, because that is the only way things will change. We, The People, have to not just talk, we have to act.
Sources:
http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=166§ionid=1068
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2070226/Violent-homes-effect-brains-children-combat-does-soldiers.html
http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/vol9no3Art3.pdf by JD Osofsky - 1999 - Louisiana State University Health Sciences
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2529/Violence-Children-s-Exposure-COMMUNITY-VIOLENCE.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/americas-deadly-devotion-guns
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/14/1337221/a-timeline-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us-since-columbine/?mobile=nc
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454
