Another Day, Another Massacre

Once again, a lone gunman goes on a rampage, killing as many people as he (and it's usually a he) could before turning the gun on himself.  So it's left to other people to try as best they could to explain what really happened.

In the span of a few days, a shopping mall in Portland, Oregon and an elementary school in Connecticut became battlegrounds for the ones who bear a grudge against society.  Around thirty people have died in those incidents, including the gunmen who allegedly committed the act.

We're not here to talk about gun control.  That argument has been won long ago by the National Rifle Association, and the millions of gun owners who believe that the Second Amendment is the only law in the U.S. Constitution that counts.  Besides, there is no law on Earth that could have prevented what these men allegedly did.

Instead, let's talk about what mass shootings and other acts of violence have done to our society.  Schools have become minimum security prison facilities.  It is harder to get through an airport, a government building or a sports stadium without being wanded or body-scanned.  Well-meaning but ineffectual signs reading "Guns Are Banned On These Premises" are everywhere.  And thanks to the Patriot Act, freedom's not what it used to be.

Parents who took their kids to school in Newtown, Connecticut on the morning of December 14 believed they were in the safest place in the world, away from the noise and crime of New York City just 60 miles away.  Well, to paraphrase singer Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Newtown became the safest place they never found.  Because no matter where you go or what you do at whatever time of the day, violence will find you.  That's not a threat.  That's a fact of life in the 21st century we all have to deal with.

And we have been dealing with it for nearly a half century.  As much as we remember names of battles from wars past, the names of places where political or other acts of murder have taken place stand out as well:  Dallas.  Memphis.  Los Angeles.  Oklahoma City.  Columbine.  The World Trade Center in New York.    Virginia Tech.  Fort Hood, Texas.  Tucson, Arizona.  Aurora, Colorado. 

We'll keep adding to this list until the last man or woman standing on this Earth is holding a gun in their hand.  What happens next may or may not be their choice.