By now, most of you are aware that there has been a mass shooting in the Washington Navy Yard, in a government building, not at all far from my house. You are aware that twelve people are dead, that the shooter had a history of mental illness, that there were multiple legal and historical indications of his condition, and that he had no difficulty whatsoever in buying a gun. You know that the gunman was aware of his condition, had been treated for it, was actively seeking help not a month before. And despite it all, today, September 23, 2013, the nation held another funeral for those dead from the barrel of a gun.
If you know all of this, you are almost certainly aware that there is scarcely a murmur of gun regulation, mental health screening, or any other legislation moving because of this. In the past year, we have, as a nation, endured more mass shootings than I care to think about, including Newtown, Connecticut, and we have proven unable to pass even the most basic protections to keep high-powered weapons from mentally unstable or criminal hands. I’ve made my views on gun control perfectly clear to most of you, so I won’t go into detail; suffice it to say, if we can keep a driver’s license from a dangerous individual (or a group, for that matter), we should be able to keep a semiautomatic from him too. But that’s not the argument I want to have here, nor, in truth, is gun control (or its lack) what truly frightens me.
What frightens me, what keeps we worried, what compels me to write this piece even though I wanted to sleep an hour ago, is this: when I saw this headline, my first thought was, "Oh, another shooting. No big deal; the police and paramedics will have it squared away, and I know no one in Navy Yard."
Then I realized what that meant.
It meant that this is no longer shocking.
It meant that this is no longer unthinkable.
It meant that this is...normal.
And I don't want it to be so.
Consider what this means for a moment. The fact that we, as a nation, can look at catastrophe like this, unable to muster enough outrage for even a cursory review of the matter, means that we have grown used to such mass murders. And growing used to such atrocities is one step towards accepting them--not even the first step, at that.
Let me say that again. We, as a nation, have grown so used to mass violence and death that we no longer try to stop them. It is a short step from "not trying" to "permitting," and a shorter from "permitting" to "accepting." In short, we have, as a nation, accepted atrocities as normal.
I do not wish to live in a society where atrocities, death, and murder can be considered "normal." That is not normal to me. That is war. And I have no wish to live in war.
Stalin once said, “If you kill one person, it’s a tragedy; if you kill a million people, it’s a statistic.” I fear that we see that true. Remember, if you can; each man, woman, and child killed in this and every other shooting was an individual. He or she had hopes, loves, hates, laughs, sorrows, dreams, fears, much like you or I. He or she had friends, family, relatives, brothers, sisters, parents, daughters, sons. He or she is more than a name; he was a man, she a woman. We weep for one man, one woman; why so much harder to weep for two?
To round off, let me give you some well-known thoughts of war:
War is hell.
War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.
I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded….I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed…I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
If you know all of this, you are almost certainly aware that there is scarcely a murmur of gun regulation, mental health screening, or any other legislation moving because of this. In the past year, we have, as a nation, endured more mass shootings than I care to think about, including Newtown, Connecticut, and we have proven unable to pass even the most basic protections to keep high-powered weapons from mentally unstable or criminal hands. I’ve made my views on gun control perfectly clear to most of you, so I won’t go into detail; suffice it to say, if we can keep a driver’s license from a dangerous individual (or a group, for that matter), we should be able to keep a semiautomatic from him too. But that’s not the argument I want to have here, nor, in truth, is gun control (or its lack) what truly frightens me.
What frightens me, what keeps we worried, what compels me to write this piece even though I wanted to sleep an hour ago, is this: when I saw this headline, my first thought was, "Oh, another shooting. No big deal; the police and paramedics will have it squared away, and I know no one in Navy Yard."
Then I realized what that meant.
It meant that this is no longer shocking.
It meant that this is no longer unthinkable.
It meant that this is...normal.
And I don't want it to be so.
Consider what this means for a moment. The fact that we, as a nation, can look at catastrophe like this, unable to muster enough outrage for even a cursory review of the matter, means that we have grown used to such mass murders. And growing used to such atrocities is one step towards accepting them--not even the first step, at that.
Let me say that again. We, as a nation, have grown so used to mass violence and death that we no longer try to stop them. It is a short step from "not trying" to "permitting," and a shorter from "permitting" to "accepting." In short, we have, as a nation, accepted atrocities as normal.
I do not wish to live in a society where atrocities, death, and murder can be considered "normal." That is not normal to me. That is war. And I have no wish to live in war.
Stalin once said, “If you kill one person, it’s a tragedy; if you kill a million people, it’s a statistic.” I fear that we see that true. Remember, if you can; each man, woman, and child killed in this and every other shooting was an individual. He or she had hopes, loves, hates, laughs, sorrows, dreams, fears, much like you or I. He or she had friends, family, relatives, brothers, sisters, parents, daughters, sons. He or she is more than a name; he was a man, she a woman. We weep for one man, one woman; why so much harder to weep for two?
To round off, let me give you some well-known thoughts of war:
War is hell.
War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.
I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded….I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed…I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
