As a non-parent I am afforded the luxury of hearing about yet another school shooting and not immediately being sickened by panic and despair.
I am not indifferent or unmoved. Not shocked or horrified. Unimpressed? Perhaps. Numb? Definitely.
That is where I am now. Have been for a while — a bit longer than I care to realize.
But, in the next second the anger takes hold. My fists clench, the head shakes and the expletives fly. The shoulders slump.
Really!? REALLY??? We’re doing this %!@! again!? We’re watching another campus shooting unfold in front of our eyes on social media? Glancing — if the school is not in our neighborhood or county — intermittently at news broadcasts for updates and details. If it has happened in our town or to people we know the refresh buttons on our browsers and the channel changers do not bring information fast enough. We hold our breath until we can’t. Until we get some wispy thread of hope to cling to: My son/daughter/friend is OK.
Of course, when a mass shooting takes place in a larger public venue the reactions are the same, though the number of reactors is multiplied.
Panic.
Fear.
Anger.
Refresh.
Mourn.
Thoughts and prayers.
Repeat.
And so here we are again. This time it is Thursday morning just before 10:30 and the victimized community is the city of Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County. As of The Star-News’s press time Thursday, six people were shot and one of those people is dead.
Parents and others elsewhere, I bet, breathed a momentary and guilty sigh of relief when the location was reported.
It’s one thing if your kids are in harm’s way but quite something else if it’s your neighbor’s or a stranger’s. The tragedy is distant so we can keep the pain at arm’s length. Life can go on as normal. And it does. For most.
Certainly not for those affiliated with Santa Clarita’s Saugus High School, or Mobile, Alabama, or Highlands Ranch, Colorado, or any of the other campuses where people with guns have shot at and killed classmates and strangers. Friends and perceived enemies.
Why are we here? Why are we doing this?
The answer is simple in its complexity. It’s about more than a casual disregard for life, and about more than the “right to bear arms.” But we do know that despite the complexity there is a common factor. Guns. Killers and would-be killers had legal or illegal access to guns and have done what we do while we do mostly nothing.
In this county we hope and wish and pray that sort of tragedy does not happen here.
We’ve done that before. We’ll do that again.
And I will wonder why we are here again, damn it.
