Oregon shootings: Here we go again
Editorial
Although it's generally considered bad form in the editorial business to draw directly upon one's previous columns, the latest round of school shootings in Springfield, Oregon have drawn painful parallels between themselves and the tragedies in Arkansas, Kentucky, Pennsyvlvania...the list is nauseatingly long. And the similarities between these heinous acts - copycat crimes is perhaps more appropriate - allow us suitable justification to once again pose some of the same questions we confronted when this strange and horrible string of events began in Jonesboro, Arkansas several weeks ago: "If asked to distill the fundamentals of human nature into a single, overarching principle, we'd have to say that, more than anything else, humanity is defined by its intrinsic need to answer that most basic of questions, 'Why?'" "It's a need which, in one form or another, informs every decision and judgment we make, the values we structure our lives around and allows us - if only in our own minds - to make sense of existence itself." Thus we began our own very public search for a meaning, an explanation to the acts of two young boys who do not fit easily into our worldviews. This wasn't how the world was supposed to work, we thought, and as such it must be regarded as an aberration, a kind of unfortunate natural disaster. Indeed, the pat explanations seemed the only way any of us could get our minds around the sickening uselessness of the incident. But then it happened again. And again. And again. And now it's become clear that, in our need to draw meaning from events, to place them in a context consistent with how we believe the world works, we've allowed ourselves to buy into explanations which are sorely lacking. It's become painfully apparent that there is something more fundamentally amiss with America's schoolchildren that makes blaming these continued tragedies on a few troubled teens an impossibility. No, it feels as though the entire culture is perched upon a kind of teetering fulcrum, and one push in either direction will determine our future course. The disingenuous - and often downright insane - solutions which have been proffered to this outbreak in youth violence are really no answers at all. Counselors calling upon parents, teachers and friends to heed the "warning signs" a potential mass murderer might exhibit is both silly and ineffective. How many times do we have to hear about the troubled past of the teenage killer, or hear interviews with aquaintances who wished they'd taken their threats more seriously before we acknowledge the obvious: all teens are screwed up to a certain degree and this is no way to identify the ticking time bombs. Other suggestions, such as hunkering down until summer vacation buys some respite for schools to regroup and the violence to diffuse, smack of cowardice and ineffectuality. And the suggestion by one member of the Georgia state legislature that we arm all teachers and administrators with guns to counteract other potential incidents is so surreal one can't help but feel that "the Southern gun culture" is one of the primary culprits of this entire mess. What is clear is that nothing is clear, and we cannot expect to go on in the same vein. The guns have got to go, and we just hope and pray that the NEA has a bit more influence and common sense than the NRA.
Be the first to comment on this article!