My family and I were at the movies on Thursday night, a few
hours before the Aurora shooting occurred in Colorado. While this may not be
the worst shooting rampage in recent history, it will probably be the one that
sends the largest collective shudder down the backs of the multitudes of us who
relish the national past time of movie watching.
The next day, on watching the news, my daughter asked me why
the shooter behaved the way he did. Did he really mean to harm people? When I said
that his intention was definitely to kill, she insisted that "He must have been drunk…..Otherwise why
would he do it?" In the innocent mind of my ten-year old, the only
possible cause for deviance and irrational behavior is excessive alcohol. To
her, perversity existed solely in the realm of story-books. The only real-life
manifestation of sociopathy was perhaps in the form of the impersonal and
faceless ‘terrorist.’ I explained that like terrorists who wreak havoc as a
group in the name of their cause, there are individuals who are driven to
carnage by their own agendas and experiences.
I hadn’t imagined that I would need to have a conversation
with my daughter about guns. I reminded her about the purpose of the lockdown
drills that are performed regularly in her school along with the fire drills. I wasn’t aware of the lockdown drills until last
year, when at the beginning of the school year my 4-year old son related to me
the events of his day, which included a lockdown drill. His class of pre-schoolers
practiced hiding in the classroom with the lights switched off in case “bad
guys” came to their school. Usually I ask questions and encourage elaboration,
but I balked at the idea of extending this topic of conversation.
I asked my daughter if she knew the purpose of the lockdown
drills. She had a vague idea. Had she heard of Columbine? She hadn't. So we
embarked on a journey to inform ourselves. Together we watched video news clips
and read about the present shooting. And I realized, before long, that I had
pulled the trigger on some part of her innocence.
President Obama and Mitt Romney have both reacted with pathetic
inadequacy to the murders. “If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy,
it’s to remember that life is fragile….” the President said. The idea that life
need not be so fragile because such tragedies are entirely preventable with
better gun control, escaped him.
“This is a time for each of us to look into our hearts and
remember how much we love one another. And how much we love and how much we
care for our great country…” said Romney. It’s clear that Romney cares more
about not upsetting his voter-base (41% of Republicans own guns, as per the
NRA.)
Obama and Romney urged that we reflect on the tragedy, the
loss and pain of victims and their families, and offer each other our love and
support, - a message that would have been appropriate after a natural disaster,
and not a genuine, home-grown, American-made fiasco.
“There are going to be other days
for politics…” said the President. “There will be justice for those
responsible, but that is another matter for another day…” said Romney. Both
were too cowardly to acknowledge that the consequence of having assault weapons
easily accessible to practically anybody,
is exactly an incident like the one in Aurora.
There will be more incidents. Many more. And perhaps that is
exactly what we need before the average gun-owning, second amendment
worshipping citizen is shaken out of his stupor of stupidity. The NRA’s fear-mongering
that any form of gun control will result in the second amendment being revoked
is bewildering, especially in the face of actual U.S. gun statistics. There are
almost as many guns as people in the United States. The population of the U.S.
is 311 million. The NRA puts the total number of firearms owned by US civilians
at 300 million. With the continuing trend of mass murders, this gap will surely
be bridged!
The assault weapons used in this week’s mass murder were
purchased legally. The weapons used by the Tucson shooter who fired 32 bullets
in 15 seconds were purchased legally. The assault weapons used in the next
incident will also have been purchased legally, and easily. And without so much
as a background check for prior violence, for psychiatric illness or any
questioning as to why a civilian requires an automatic weapon with a capacity
to annihilate a dozen lives in a matter of a few seconds.
A country that would rather coach its children to prepare for
potential shooting rampages rather than prevent them with adequate gun control
deserves Aurora, deserves Columbine, deserves Virginia Tech. Only the victims
did not deserve to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Next time it could be you.
