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February 15, 2008
"These things happen"
A bit off-topic here, but here goes:
When the police chief of a college where 5 people have just been gunned down by a former student says, "Unfortunately, these things happen," is American society and culture in jeopardy or danger?
If so, is the answer a political solution or something different -- a grassroots effort to repair a culture that seems to be growing immune to mass murder?
Other blogs that reference "These things happen":
In this case I think the conversation quickly polarizes into 2 different thoughts:
1) we should remove all the guns from the country to prevent this
2) we should arm everyone so they can fight back quickly
unfortunately I don't think either of these options are rationale and feasible. This blog and your professional work is dedicated to word of mouth and citizen marketers--the power is in the voice of hte populous. We can take these notions and focus them on the personal side of things. People should pay attention to the citizens around them, their friends, family etc. When something seems out of place, the citizen can and should use their voice to speak up and let the community at large know. Just like telling everyone you know you love product XYZ, tell somebody if you think your neighbor is acting funny or off his meds...
ddv
It's pretty sad when a school shooting seems mundane. I noticed that this story was buried in the first section of the Globe and Mail today. It did not even make it to the first few pages.
The problem is... well... what do you *do*? Ban everyone from having any contact at all with firearms? Mandate concealed assault rifles? Put metal detectors on every door of every building everywhere?
The thing is... yes, this is a very public tragedy. But the thing about random acts of violence is that they are random. How do you prevent something which is unpredictable? I don't think anybody knows. Meanwhile, we *know* that things like cigarettes kill people--many more people than random shootings!--and we still haven't managed to get rid of *them*, which unfortunately does not speak well for our chances on a front where the motives defy logic and our understanding of mental illness is still in its infancy.
I will be praying for those who are in the middle of these horrific events, but I would rather not see anybody rashly promising "never again" when no one knows how to make that happen.
I don't think that it really has anything to do with guns, or how available they are. Guns have always been available to most US citizens and we don't see people randomly wielding them in the streets (at least, I don’t and I live in Los Angeles). I think that this reflects on society in general. That someone can become that disconnected from people - even his fellow classmates - speaks to an isolation that I, personally find incomprehensible. Not only that, but the young man was recently off some drug or another. Who knows what the withdrawal symptoms are for that drug. Some drugs out there are incredibly dangerous to withdraw from willy-nilly. It’s a true tragedy.
....it's just too crazy, is our society out of whack or what.
bl
The commissioner is of course right that there is little he can do about this, even if he desperately wanted to.
There is not much, period, that can be done about this kind of situation seeing the number of firearms in public ownership. Even if you would forbid firearms completely, it would take a decade or two to flush all existing arms out of circulation.
In most countries, if you feel depressed and hate the world you are fairly limited in the amount of damage you can do. Wielding a knife to deadly effect on more than a single victim requires skills before you are overwhelmed. There is little you can do to stop a determined gunman until he/she needs to reload.
At the moment, the only thing that can be done is to publicly name and list all gun violence victims, and hope that somehow a tipping point is reached.
The American right to bear arms is about as sensible as a right to arm bears.
I find your theft and misuse of biblical terms like "evangel" "gospel" and "church" really offensive--almost as offensive as churches which appropriate trendy marketing ideas and call it the gospel.
In watching the news I heard this sound bit; in this posting it was taken out of context. The police chief was answering the question: were there any warning signs? could something have been done to prevent it? His answer was, in paraphrase: no, the man had displayed no warning signs before-hand; thus, sometimes "these things just happen." He might have been correct to finish the phrase with ...and we don't know why. It's important in this case not to assign indifference or apathy to a man who responded very well to the situation and, in other parts of his interview, showed anguish regarding the event.
@ Travis: Thanks for the update. I'd only read the quote in the Times and thus had only its context.
That said, my musing wasn't so much about how the chief or the school reacted to the shooting, which have been praised, but more to his telegraphing of helplessness, not apathy.
He and the school didn't fail society, American society failed the chief and the school.
Don't know if this is grassroots or political - but - remember "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?" There used to be a lot more hospitals like that in this country. And I'm not sayin' that particular type of hospital or its treatments was anything to model on, but I am saying that our current approach putting every cuckoo out on the street doesn't make much more sense. Guns don't kill people, crazy people kill people - at least in instances like this.
