It’s impossible to be a parent and not have a
strong, emotional reaction to what happened last week in Newtown, Conn. The
idea that a 20-year-old man—regardless of how sick he was—could walk into an
elementary school and use assault weapons to execute 20 six- and
seven-year-olds is a beast to get one’s mind around.
The really scary thing is this: kids getting
shot is nothing new. Ask anyone who lives in the rough parts of Oakland, where
a cadre of young children were innocent victims of drive-by shootings on the
streets in late 2011—a six-year-old out for a shopping stroll with his family;
a five-year-old whose only mistake was joining his father for a quick stop at
the family’s taqueria when a hail of gunfire claimed him; and an 11-month-old
(!), who was in his father’s arms at a rap video shoot in a liquor store parking
lot when a bullet passed through his neck.
Or the families of the 180 American children
11-year-old or under that the Centers for Disease Control reported killed by
gunshot during 2010. Or the 85 American preschoolers—85!—who died by gunshot
during 2007, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. (To put that in perspective,
during the same year only 57 law enforcement officers were killed in the line
of duty.)
In fact, David Hemenway, a Harvard professor of health policy and
director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, told The New York
Times earlier this year,
"Children ages 5 to 14 in the United States are 13 times as likely to be
killed with guns as children in other industrialized countries.”
Yikes.
No
wonder my brother, Greg, posted this search for sanity on Facebook over he
weekend: “...I have spent the entire
day on the edge of constant tears. And I want to do something about it, but I
just don't know what. The only thing I can do right now is to urge every one I
know to think about what they can do. Let's start a conversation. This is the
place to start. All I know is that something needs to be done. Does anyone have
any suggestions? I know that I can write my congressman about my outrage, but
will that be enough? I'm just at a loss right now and I need all of your help.”
I haven’t commented on the post
because it’s such a personal topic that generates such emotional responses, and
I know my posts can sometimes come off as the proverbial sharp stick poking the
angry animal. And as much as I understand Greg’s reaction—and EVERYONE’s
reactions—to the unspeakable evil that erupted at Sandy Hook Elementary School,
my reaction has been quite different. Because I don’t think there’s a damned
thing we can do. Who are we supposed to feel outrage at? Do we really expect a
privileged club of (mostly) pontificating old men in suits to protect our
children from random maniacs? Fat chance.
While that may sound
cynical, my feelings are more reflective of what I believe is a need to accept
the risks of living in this crazy free-for-all of a society that we’ve chosen to
create. You cannot give millions upon millions of people the right to defend
themselves and then think you can stop the one-in-a-million sicko from carrying
out a fiendish plot. And if it wasn’t guns, it would have been a crossbow, or
explosives, or a chemical weapon.
(I have to disclose here
that this fatalistic response contrasts with the devastation I felt after
hearing of the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre. Perhaps the newness of a
movie theater getting shot up shocked me in a whole new way, whereas I’m
apparently braced for school shootings, which have become sickeningly
commonplace.)
What’s more, if there’s one
way to make what transpired in Newtown even more repulsive, it’s to take advantage
of this emotionally moment for the country for political gains, like we should
just start flailing, pointlessly, at an enemy—psychosis—we can’t understand or
control, and that will pop up violently at random, infrequent intervals for as
long as our species survives.
I was pretty disgusted
Sunday night when, after a much needed two-day national discussion, about 20
people gathered at a neighbors home to have a potluck and watch the Patriots-49ers
game and try to have some frivolity, and a few minutes into the game, the
evening was interrupted by a live broadcast of President Obama’s speech from the
vigil at Newtown High School. And I felt even more disgusted that I was
disgusted. It was a horrible event that justified the gravity, no doubt. And it
was clear the President was really hurting. But somehow it felt political to
have the whole thing forced down our throats as millions of us gathered in
front of televisions to escape, not be reminded.
I couldn’t help but think
it was a thinly veiled attempt to nudge our sympathies in order to gain support
for an eventual agenda. And even if it’s a noble agenda, the timing of it is
wrong-headed. Next thing you know, we’ll have locked-down schools, kids being
frisked every morning, armed guards being placed at school entrances—oh, wait,
we already have that at many schools. Sigh.
Don’t get me wrong. There
will be a time to act. But now is not that time, because action will require
politics, and now is definitely not the time to be politicizing what is clearly
a hot-button issue. Now is the time to mourn and process and reflect. Anyone of
sound mind will tell you that when you’re mourning the loss of a close loved
one, the last thing you should be doing is making any big decisions. The
emotions that accompany grief just aren’t conducive to effective decision-making.
Knee-jerk over-reactions occur. I know. I’m the reigning King of Knee-Jerk
Over-Reactions. Knee-jerk reacting is exactly what we did in the wake of 9/11,
when we let our emotions get the best of us and our leadership foisted upon us dangerous
legislation that ate away at fundamental rights we’re still trying hard to
regain.
I know it’s easy to
intellectualize the events of last Friday in this fashion when I’m not one of
the parents in Newtown who are enduring a hell no one should experience. I’m
sure if I was one of them, or someone who knew one of them, I would be calling
for blood. And yes, re-instituting the ban on assault weapons would seem to be a
start. But perhaps more than that is needed, and by quickly passing that
through, we might, at the least, make it less likely agreement will be reached
on additional action. At worst, we could begin a path that leads to another
attack on personal liberties for the sake of security.
Instead, let’s all just pause,
think about the victims, maybe try to get to know a little about who they were,
and pay tribute to them in our own little ways. Then, in time, we should engage
in meaningful discussion about mental illness and the need to reach out more effectively
to those who have it. And we should have healthy debates about our gun laws so
that we can all further develop our thinking about them and how they should be
altered. Then, when everyone’s calmed down a bit, we can start making some
decisions. Good, sound decisions. The foundation of effective parenting, and,
presumably, of effective governing.