Monday, December 17, 2012
Another horrific crime
Now we turn the page.
The images of the massacre in Connecticut sear our emotions and plague
our memories. As least as much as we can
stand. Too many pictures, too many
stories, too many journalists, cameras and talking heads. At some point we all turn off the television,
shake our heads and wonder how this can happen.
Then, soon, we turn the page.
The
memory of Newtown, Connecticut blurs into the images from Virginia Tech, or the Amish school, or
Columbine. Our initial shock folds into
our outrage then finally into an uncomfortable resignation. We live, apparently, in a violent society
where thousands of people every year are killed with guns. To keep ourselves sane we tell ourselves it
can’t happen to me, to my family, to my friends. We know, of course, that the people in
Newtown probably thought the same thing.
But what else can we think? Should we home school our children? Avoid movie theaters? Stay away from the mall? We can’t and we won’t. Life must go on. I live perhaps equidistant from Columbine on
the west and Aurora on the east.
Virtually all of us in Jeffco knew someone connected to Columbine. I was privileged the other night to offer
words of encouragement to the man who is inheriting the prosecution of the
movie theater murders. These events
touch me. I know it can happen here; it
already has.
And yet, I, too will turn the
page. One might think that based on my
job I am inured to horrific acts of violence, that my emotions are subsumed by
my dedication to my job. Perhaps in some
ways they are. But something like this,
something so viscerally painful, wounds deep even to those whose career it is
to seek justice. Yes, we move on, too,
but perhaps with a renewed sense of devotion to work that, just maybe, might
prevent someone from being hurt.
It will be up to others to examine
the causes of these tragedies. Hopefully
some national examination of these mass murders can come up with, if not
answers, at least insight. I fear,
however, that will not be the case. I
don’t know whether solutions can be found in gun control, mental illness
treatment resources, or enhanced security.
What I would hope is that those on every side of these issues will make
a critical examination of all aspects and be willing to compromise. Unfortunately, it seems compromise has become
vilified as weakness. Too many believe
they carry the right answer, and acknowledgement that contrary opinions might
possess some validity is incomprehensible.
So nothing is done.
Because nothing is done, nothing can
change. Which means the next mass
murderer is out there. He will have
access to guns. He will certainly be
mentally ill. He will plan his crimes in
secret, then burst out in ways no one can imagine. We will hear interviews of his friends,
family, neighbors, coworkers. They will
tell us he was strange, not quite right, perhaps even creepy, but that no one
suspected he was a killer. No one ever
does. For a time we again will feel the pain of the innocents victims and their
loved ones.
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