When the shooting started, I wasn’t at home. I was watching The Hobbit, and before that I took a good amount of time traveling to the theater by bus. I left my apartment just before 8am and I had shut off my television around 7:45am. When I left the theater, which was around 1pm, I boarded the bus and it wasn’t until 2pm, after doing some shopping, did I notice a flag at a bank at half-mast. I made the assumption they had their flag wrong; that maybe the pole was stuck and the flag was at an odd position. I looked around and didn’t see any other flags in the area. I went into a local health food / grocery store. Think of it like a local Whole Foods. Parents were with kids, trendy types were getting their organic produce and all seemed OK with the world. There were no conversations about anything important. People made idle chit chat about the recent rainstorms, small disputes with neighbor and co-workers, and the only surprising talk to me in the land of granola and organic soy milk were people talking about the Arizona Cardinals terrible football season.

It wasn’t until exactly 4pm, when I had finally gotten home, settled down and turned on the TV did I see a special report from CNN on a local news channel about the shooting. They mentioned the statement the President had made and how he became emotional, they mentioned the fast breaking news about the gunman, speculation on how he got into the school, and how the police found his mother dead. Always there was mention of the children, the innocent souls as the press was found of referring to the victims as. It was hours later when I would realize the same mall where I saw The Hobbit had become a memorial center, with families coming with candles and flowers to mourn the little victims.

What I have found unfortunately typical about shocking situations like this is how we collectively try to justify and marginalize what happens. After I turned on the TV at 4pm, it took less than a minute, maybe it was 30 seconds, before an ‘impartial press’ referred to the shooter as a monster. I’m not sure if it was a political official or a law enforcement person who soon after said evil had visited the town. Every effort was made to make the shooter to be separate from us. He wasn’t human; he was a monster, he was evil. As more information came out, we were told he had a mental condition, then it became he might be borderline autistic and, from last reports, interviews with people who knew him painted a picture of a man who was smart but quiet and odd because he didn’t associate with other people. Saturday morning is when I started to see one picture of the shooter, and of course the only picture of him showed a wild eyed odd character.

I’m not making excuses for what happened but what disappoints me about events like this is how quickly we try to reassure ourselves the event isn’t real; in the sense that there must have been evil lurking about to cause the tragedy. The shooter is always made out to be evil, not just evil but pure evil in a mythical kind of way. The shooter isn’t just bad but supernaturally bad. The victims are always saints. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and if they have lived they would have been great assets to society. That sounds harsh to hear but deep down you know that is what happens. We build the victims up and we tear the shooter down. You would think that would mean the good and innocent victims would be glorified and the killer, much like in Harry Potter, would become the person whose name is never spoken of.

Look at that for a moment, the silencing of evil. Ask most people and they can name the shooters in Columbine but they couldn’t name one victim. This shooting reminded me of one that happened in San Diego in the late 70’s. I don’t remember the name of any of the victims of that shooting, but I Don’t Like Mondays became a moderate hit song and this shooting reminded people of Brenda Bakke, the shooter in that tragedy. As much as we try to suppress it, we remember the evil more than the good in these cases. I’m sure some might say that it is easier to focus on an individual doing evil than to uphold the honor and goodness of victims, but the truth is we don’t try. An evil act is something we see right in the open. Despite what we try to say, it causes notoriety for the killer. How many movies have been made about, or are based upon the lives of the people lost in the Manson Murders? How many movies have been made or are inspired by Charles Manson? Do you see what is happening?

Notoriety is probably an important key as to why these shootings keep occurring. While focus is on this case of 20 children killed, the shooting at a mall just a week prior is pretty much a distant memory. The story was fading even before this shooting occurred because it didn’t match the impact of the theater shooting at the theater in Colorado. Those two shootings were very similar, but one happened during the showing of a comic book movie and there was a live suspect. I would imagine if the recent mall shooter had

survived, he would still receive limited attention because he was trumped by a school shooting.

A psychologist said something, one in a long list of specialist trotted out on the news in the past few days, which made some sense into understanding why these folks kill. While he did mention the whole evil aspect, we have to acknowledge our fascination with the killer, elevating them to a mythical evil status, makes someone with incredibly low self-esteem and other issues look at mass killing as a way of making their mark in the world. He said these folks lack power, they try to get power over people or symbols of people who have done them ‘wrong’ and when they are done, in most cases killing themselves is a way of throwing the middle finger up at society. In the end, we look at the tragedies by the individuals that do the bad deeds, not by the victims.

<< PREVIOUS
NEXT >>

Copyright © Chaotic Fringe LLC. All rights reserved.

The Shooting Tragedy - December 16, 2012
Home | News | Entertainment | Blog | Podcast | IMVN | Everquest 2 | Links | Photos | V-Blog