November 3, 1999

I had an entry all planned for today where I was going to talk about the election results and some local Seattle issues and what I thought of them, and why I like Seattle politics better than I ever liked Chicago politics.

Then the news broke through a song on the radio and they said that some guy in camouflage shot a bunch of people in a building downtown.

They don't have a motive, they have no idea why, but for some reason this guy put a mask on his face and went downtown with a gun and shot four people.

This is not the world I want to live in.

Small towns aren't safe, we all know that, that's where crazy people go nuts and shoot people for no reason. And we know big cities aren't safe, because that's where gangs and muggers are, and now the crazy people are shooting for no reason in the big cities too.

This is definitely not the world I want to live in.

So I'm depressed, I had a bad day, I hate my co-workers, I hate everything, I want to end it all -- why do I want to take out a bunch of other people with me? I can't figure it out. I can't comprehend this. I can't get inside that mindset at all. I can't empathize or sympathize, I can't even begin to imagine.

Why now? It's not like Americans are better armed than ever before. We were well armed in the 1800s but you didn't hear about people going nuts with their muskets and blowing away a bunch of people down at the wharf. What's wrong with us? Why has shooting into crowds become an acceptable method of stress relief?

What I really hate are people who think they know the answers to these questions, who think they can answer them with pithy one-liners: "We need tighter gun control", "We need more moral instruction in the schools", "We need better family units", "We need more people to have guns as a deterrent", "We need harsher prison sentences", "We need focus groups", "We need psychotherapy", and I don't know what the hell else.

What we need is deeper and more complex than any politician desperate for a soundbite, or any grieving mother, or any religious leader with an agenda, can figure out on the spur of the moment.

Effect does not imply cause. We have a lot of shootings, therefore we must have too many guns? No. We have a lot of shootings, therefore our school systems are failing? No. We have this pathological desire to continuously ask why, why, why, why do things happen? Why did this happen? How can we stop it from happening again? And they want EASY answers to those questions, that's the real kicker. They want a simple fix, a band-aid to make the hurt go away.

Well, guess what? There are no easy answers. Anyone who says there are is deluding himself, or lying.

I called Keith with this news and he said, "we live in a violent society". We do. It's true, we're surrounded with violence. I was talking to somebody online about this and he said that if the gunman were reported to be in HIS neighborhood, he'd be on the front porch with a gun.

It reminded me of when I was six and I was in a grocery store that was robbed by an armed man. He pointed the gun at my mom and told everyone to hit the deck, and I started crying. We got home after all this, and my stepdad found out what had happened, and he said "Well, I wish I'd been there, if I'd been there they wouldn't have got away with this." He would have taken matters into his OWN hands, by God.

What is this? We've become a nation of vigilantes, searching for our own justice? Or has it simply become more acceptable for people to act out their violent tendencies?

I was reading a newsgroup the other day, and somebody on it suggested that the appropriate way to deal with tailgaters is to slam on their brakes, so that they swerve off the road and slam into a tree. Tailgaters. Someone driving a little too close to your rear bumper. And the appropriate way to deal with that person is to kill them? Why is this an acceptable thought to the person that expressed it?

Maybe he was just joking, but I bet the next time somebody tailgates him, the thought crosses his mind, and maybe he'll slam on the brakes a little too quick, look into the rearview mirror a little too hopefully, who knows?

We live in a violent society. We protect our children from images of sex, but we permit them to freely watch acts of extreme violence. We think that this is normal, that this is okay. We do not see the discordancy of these actions.

I used to really believe in America. I guess I still do. At least, I believe in the principles it was founded upon. I believe in the enlightened principles of the Constitution. I believe that the United States has the potential to be the greatest country to ever exist, based on its founding principles.

I also believe that we have forgotten those founding principles, that we are mired in a bog of confusion, that our politicians are not principled, and that our society is in disarray.

We have lost sight of the shining ideal that we have the potential to be, and I sincerely hope, as we move into the cusp of the new millennium, that we somehow manage to find our way again.

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