I went back and forth on blogging something about this, mostly because I’m sure there’s nothing I can say that won’t be said by a billion other people (and probably better—for example, this post from Anne Lamott or even this piece from The Onion) and because my thoughts are basically incoherent and “CHILDREN WHY? GUNS WHY? 20 KIDS DEAD WHY?”
And yet.
My Facebook friend Jason shared a quote that when things like this happen, there are three kneejerk responses. Blame society or blame guns or blame the mental health system. I’m solidly in camp two, but support addressing the mental health system, too (which is where Jason is—camp three). But another Facebook friend, Angela (and we actually all went to elementary and middle school together, too, as backstory) blames violence in entertainment.
And because I am me (someone who’s watched horror movies since I was nine), I was like, “But no! I know so many people who watch violent entertainment and who are totally fine! Ridiculous argument!”
And THEN the light went on. Because that’s basically what I’m saying for gun control. Yes, many people can manage to simultaneously own guns and not manage to shoot little kids (or moviegoers, or people at church or shoppers). Is it fair to strengthen gun control laws, which may hurt those law-abiding people, in order to keep other people from legally acquiring guns? Maybe not. But is it necessary? Probably. (Most of these mass shootings are used with guns that were acquired legally.)
Do I love horror movies? Yes, I do. Would I be willing to see a ban on gratuitous violence? If it could stop something like this, absolutely. I like Quentin Tarantino and yes, even movies like Hostel and the Saw movies but honestly, I like days where 20 kids aren’t murdered more. I will admit that that’s glib, but it’s also true.
(Note: I don’t think it’s accurate to blame entertainment for things like this, but then I’m also not someone who is likely to shoot up a school. I don’t know the ramifications of watching blood-soaked movies if you’re already on the bad end of crazy.)
And I think we need a change in how those with mental illnesses are treated (in both senses). It shouldn’t be this easy for people to fall through the cracks and the time to notice people need help is before it’s too late.
I don’t have easy solutions and I don’t know enough about any of it to even begin to offer them. But it’s time to do more than wring our hands and talk about how awful this is. Because yes, this is awful. But if we had had these talks after Columbine or Virginia Tech or even after the movie theater shootings in Colorado, maybe we wouldn’t be talking about these 20 kids today.
To put this another way, it didn’t take more than one 9/11 to forever change the way airplane travel operates in this country.
But there are also good stories to tell. Like this one, about the teacher who saved her students at the expense of her own life. Or the principal and school psychologist, or the first grade teacher who hid her students in the bathroom.
We saw the worst of humanity yesterday, obviously. But we also saw the best and it’s those stories that I hope keep coming out.
But I wish we would stop getting to see how we, as a community and as a country, react to tragedy. I hope this time enough’s enough.
I want to make a really brilliant, thought out comment, but I’m still in shock trying to think of 20 kids exactly like my kids getting gunned down, and my brain just hurts.
Thanks for a kind, thought out post.
Thanks. I can’t even think about it for more than a few minutes at a time. But I also can’t stop thinking about it.
1. It was mostly 6 and 7 year olds.
2. We need to look at Connecticut’s state gun laws before judgement.
3. There are always loopholes. He took the guns from his mother’s house. Why did his mother have guns? Why did he kill his mother FIRST?
1) It was all six and seven year olds (in terms of the kids, obviously; adult ages varied but even half of those were younger than I am), which we didn’t know when I wrote this yesterday afternoon.
2) We need to prevent shootings everywhere, not just in Connecticut. I don’t think the solution is taking away guns from everyone; I think a lot of things need to be addressed (especially including mental illness and getting treated for same; the shooter apparently had a personality disorder).
3) He lived with his mother. And I think the bigger question is why he then went and killed a bunch of kids. Killing a parent is awful, obviously, but then killing 20 kids and five other adults? A whole other level of awful.
Hey! I got a shout out! It sucks it was on a very sad post. I’m glad people are thinking about this, it’s terrible what happened.
I promise I will give you a shout out on a better post. :)