American Tragedy

“The shooter wore a ballistic helmet, ballistic vest, ballistic leggings, a throat protector, a groin protector, gloves and a gas mask, all black. Police say the gunman killed at least 12 people and left 58 others injured, many critically with gunshot wounds, before surrendering meekly when police confronted him at his car behind the theater.” http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2018737426_shootingsuspect21.html

We choose this.

The man dyed his hair red in an attempt to impersonate “the Joker” and gunned down a crowded movie theater with weapons designed to kill humans. These weapons were purchased legally in Colorado in the weeks before his terrorist event.

We choose this.

Though we may (we must!) legitimately argue that the young man made a poor choice –  an illegal choice, we must also acknowledge that the young Mr. Holmes utilized his assault weapons according to their engineered purpose. He terminated crowds of humans with them.

We choose this.

In the name of “Freedom” – of speech and of the right to bear arms, we fiercely choose to enable Mr. Holmes and others like him to exercise their freedom on us.

Freedom of speech enables a withering desensitization of the media-attached mind through perpetual cinema violence in which thousands of murders and attempted murders occur before the eyes of developing teen-age minds on television and movies. The developing teen-age mind crystallizes these scenes into part of the framework through which the young man will solve his own frustrations and conflicts. Lethal violence becomes a familiar, comfortable option for human interaction. 

Add to cinema violence the interactive, first-hand combat practice in many of today’s video games and the already crystallized framework of ethically muted violence in the aforesaid developing mind gains split-second, real-time kinesthetic refinement. If your home is not unusual, mass murder is practiced and polished on your son’s X-Box  as often as he plays. Watch him.

We choose this.

Violent scenes on-screen shape our “story” of how life works. Violent scenes we practice with the latest technologies quicken our practice of this story. Add an Ipod full of angry lyrics to bridge the “down time” between screens and we create an almost seamless virtual “boot camp” for annoyed, American domestic terrorism.

We choose this.

Freedom to bear arms enables both the safety-conscious elk hunter and the desensitized, carefully practiced, internally hemorrhaging angry young man to make purchases at a Colorado gun shop. The careful elk hunter purchases a rifle designed to kill an elk with a single shot and feed his family for a year. The angry young terrorist purchases a handgun, shotgun and assault rifle designed to kill and wound a crowd of humans with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The elk hunter goes elk hunting; the human hunter goes human hunting.

We choose this.

Through a toxic cocktail of media school, video game boot camp and weapons availability we functionally endorse the mass murder events that keep splashing our neighbor’s lives across headlines- and it is very profitable.

This cycle of violence profits the movie industry, the television industry, the video game industry and the weapons industry on it’s first turn; then profits the American news media as the violent stories unfold, along with American health care, pharmaceutical and insurance companies, who all subsequently participate. Violence generates volume and sales across multiple industries in our capitalist system. Make no mistake, mass violence is very profitable for strong sectors of the American economy.

It’s just not profitable for you and me.

We choose this.

In the name of “Freedom,” we choose this way of living. But other first world, civilized nations with “Freedom” have different outcomes. Northern Europe and Canada do not suffer the same “American” regularity of lethal violence that we have come to expect here at home. Perhaps it’s time we wonder why this is true? I suggest one significant factor: Other civilized, “free” nations issue assault weapons and handguns. They do not sell them. But there is a significant catch: they issue these weapons to accountable and carefully trained active duty assault troops, not to untrained, unaccountable civilians.

Young men in these nations are equally prone to violent behavior as our fine young Americans, but they do so with less lethal tools and subsequently inflict far less damage.

I am familiar with a response many will raise to my proposal, that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This is very true. I am acquainted with the counter arguments: that a properly armed public can repel such an attacker, and that if we properly attend to the moral character development of Americans, Americans won’t shoot one another.

These popular arguments are untenable in 2012.  Dressed as Mr. Holmes was in a full suit of body armor, gas mask and bearing multiple assault weapons, only a similarly dressed and weapons-packing combat vigilante would have much effect on his assault, and only after he paused to reload his assault rifle. Who wants to live in a world where body armor is fashionable attire at public events? Not me. There is no freedom here.

Secondly, moral character development has been the traditional domain of family and church; and both institutions have dramatically lost favor with mainstream America since 1960. We can no more ask family and church to correct fallen ethics than we can ask our local 4-H equestrian teams to attend to our public transportation woes; America does not ride horses anymore. Furthermore, recent research shows that church affiliation & attendance does not statistically affect individual moral choices. I other words, “good Christian” (insert your favorite religion here) is a misnomer. Do we shift this duty to the public schools? Perhaps moral character development is already there…

So to summarize: putting concealed weapons and body armor on movie-goers won’t work, and we can’t preach Mr. Holmes out of his propensity to kill volumes of us.

Our other option is to address his unhappiness.  Apparently the young man was well educated, from a nice, healthy and church-going family, out of work and out of friends.

This scene deeply frightens me, because Mr. Holmes is not an isolated demographic. Our country is swelling with young men just like him – from your and my pleasant but not perfect little families. He has a hard time making friends, he’s frustrated and he’s in his mid-twenties – full of testosterone. Because he’s well educated and from a family of resources, he knows how to think and plan, coordinate and organize. In short, he can be as dangerous as he is otherwise productive.

So add “depressed, resourceful and well educated” to the violence cocktail of media school, video game boot camp and weapons availability.

How do we address his hopelessness – when it is fueled equally by a very real national economic recession and a very false, media generated heroic story of potential grandeur and immediate success that has been crystallized into his personal story? This hopelessness will create fireworks because it has been trained to expect instant gratification corresponding to instant input. Fail! He expects an immediate change when he engages his life situation proactively, and when immediate gratification doesn’t happen, he sub-consciously activates his frustration sequences: shoot.. shoot.. shoot.

Though young men across human history have been idealistic, hormone driven, resourceful and frustrated, the easy and systemic de-sensitization to violence that our young men are raised in today is new to American culture, and is particularly strong among the poverty classes. We cannot pretend any longer that what we thought worked in the 20^th century will work today.

Two dramatic civil actions are necessary if we freedom-loving Americans desire a different future:

1. We need to take pre-emptive action on lethal resources. Weapons designed to hunt humans belong among law enforcement professionals and in National Guard armories where our founding fathers intended them to be stored – registered to the active militiamen who either own them or to whom they are issued.
2. We need to take pre-emptive action on the multi-media boot-camp that feeds and hones violence. Media scenes and games that depend on violence need to be re-rated “X” and sold or viewed at “Adult Only” establishments.
   
   

Both actions will face significant resistance from our fellow Americans who benefit and profit from the current state of “Freedom.”

In harmony with these two immediate civil actions, we must intentionally begin to re-knit the complex and ancient safety net of resilient human relationship and attachment that has unraveled in our proud new, modern, isolationist, podcast, individual–choice society. 


Here is how we address hopelessness: We must come to know in our bones that we are not alone, not friendless, not hopeless, not isolated in destructive crazy-talk- but this knowing can only follow real, redemptive relationships and inter-dependent community life. 

How will we re-knit the net? How will you?

I, for one, am tired of watching this recurring cultural car wreck, and I’m done straightening our bent bumpers and pretending it will never happen again. No! Let’s change the way we drive!

We choose our America. What will you choose?