Gunman

Blog Post # 21 of 365

I did cover this incident in an earlier blog post but I have more thoughts. On Friday December 14 2012 a gunman opened fire at and elementary school in Newtown, CT. Sadly this isn't the first school shooting in my lifetime but it is in my eyes one of the most horrific. The shooter killed 20 children and 6 adults. Many of the adults died trying to save children. Some are being called hero. Apparently the shooter a 20 male with a history of mental health issues used guns owned by his mother who he killed before going to the school. In the end the shooter was killed as well. I don't know all of the details and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know. (In fact I may have some of these wrong but I don't want to fact check this incident.)

You might be wondering where this is headed since I obviously do not wish to know more about the incident or the shooter... read on.

There have been some pretty heated debates about how to prevent further shootings. The answer is I don't think there is a way to prevent another shooting from happening.

We can't prevent any evil from happening. (I don't think the shooter was evil but I don't think he had complete control to stop himself from committing such an act if in fact he was mentally ill.) Evil happens in part because people have agency and I would never want that taken away.

There has been talk of stricter gun control but he used guns from his own home. Presumably the guns were owned by someone other than himself.

There is talk of training and arming teachers, administrators, or having armed guards. I can see that ending poorly too. Can you imagine the outrage if a child were to get a hold of a gun on campus or worse the gunman having access to more guns on school property? Essentially he/she could enter empty handed with a legitimate reason for being on campus and use the guns already there to kill people.

There is talk of heavy security. I know one school shooting was done sniper style so do we have a perimeter around the school like they do in prisons?

It appears to me that schools are doing the best they can. As each incident occurs policies are made and it gets harder and harder to enter most school campuses. Which I applaud even if it is a pain in the neck sometimes. Students at our schools know about lock downs. Teachers have specific procedures. They are taught to protect the kids as best they can. What more can we expect?

Mental health is the big elephant in the room. It is costly. Insurance covers little if you happen to have any coverage at all. Unless the patient has actually committed a crime chances are he isn't getting any help at all. Times are changing and kids are often out of control. Parents have little resources and little recourse when it comes to an out of control child will any number of difficult diagnosis like oppositional defiant disorder or rage issues. Some parents are living with children with explosive episodes and police will not step in if no crime has been committed. Even the kids don't understand what is happening to them. What are parents to do? What are we to do as a society?

I'm not sure there is an answer but I do know we need to stop pointing fingers and blaming people or things that we have no control over.

The situation is sad. The families involved including the shooter's family need our prayers and compassion. We need to mourn in our own way and pray it doesn't happen again. We need to hug our kids and tell them we love them every day. But honestly that is about all we can do. Short of locking our kids at home and teaching them ourselves there is little we can do to protect them while they are away from us.