Yesterday I saw both the Arizona and United States flags flying at half-mast. I remembered this was to honor and memorialize a victim or victims of another recent shooting in our country, but I could not remember who or which victim(s). There have been so many lately. ….far too many.
I do remember my cynical response to the lowering of flags after a shooting that occurred a month or so ago. Cynically, yet somewhat “prophetically” I said, “Why don’t we just leave them at half-staff with such mass shootings now a regular occurrence?”
My fear is that instead of incensing us the continued number of deaths by gun violence have desensitized us. After being at Columbine I thought this could never happen to me. Now I am not so sure. The shooting at a King Soopers (Kroger) grocery store touched me greatly, but only for a while. You see in our nearly two decades in Colorado, we shopped regularly at King Soopers and were frequent visitors to Boulder.
All of us look for solutions. Mostly we look for something simple and easy. We need to start at the most obvious truth and work our way from there. We can’t yell out, “The second amendment!” as though this should stop all discussion about any form of gun control. Neither can we be naïve enough to think a few of the right gun laws will take care of our problem.
We need to look at the most obvious truth which is that we are the most violent nation in the free and industrialized world. Virtually no other nation has the extent of our problem. Not Switzerland with gun ownership. Not the UK or other nations with more restrictive gun laws.
We are a nation prone to violence. Why? I am not sure. What I do find interesting is that the most restrictive gun control our nation ever had was in the rugged days of “the old West”. Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City among many other rough and tumble towns had prohibitions against guns. Where was the second amendment cry there and then? Yet shootings did occur. What lies at the source of our problem that attracts people to violent “solutions” by choosing shooting? What drives people to thinking shooting another is a solution? To blame mental illness does not cover it either. Many shooters are not mentally ill. They knew right from wrong.
Why? We need to ask this question of our nation and ourselves. I am someone who once hunted and grew up on a home that usually had about three weapons for hunting. I am also a person who sees no proper use for an automatic weapon. If truly we need such a thing for protection in our country, then we are a lost cause as a nation.
But violence…..violence….why do we seem to turn to violent outbursts? Why are we more prone to this than other nations? I have a few thoughts, but none definite and none that I know of that are supported by research, study and experience.
Are we content to let things as they are? Are we content to just attack and yell at one another and cast blame? Or rather than shooting our mouths off are we able to ask questions of ourselves and determine what can be done about our penchant for violence as a culture and are we willing to give up a few of our sacred cows to deal with this?
Flags at half-staff ought to mean something. Victims of violence, often random, ought to mean something. We ought to be better than this. Can we be better? How vulnerable are you willing to be in such a probe? To pick up a cross is to make oneself vulnerable. Followers of the crucified one can do this……can’t we?