NO PHOTOS are in this post. Some of the links do have photos.
This morning, on live TV, a gunman by the name of Vester Flanagan, known as Bruce Williams on the air, show and killed a reported and a cameraman. Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were just 24 and 27. The woman Alison was interviewing, Vicki Gardner, is the sole survivor. She was shot in the back, but so far, is alive. Again, this happened live on the air, and happened so quickly that the attack was nearly over before someone was able to unfreeze and cut back to the studio, where viewers saw a stunned anchor in an understandable state of shock and disbelief.
As the cameraman fell, we could see the shooter standing above him, then aim the gun down at the cameraman. Flanagan took his own video, a literally first-person shooter video, which he uploaded and encouraged people to watch.
Flanagan later shot himself, and has ridded the world of his life.
This afternoon, on NPR, the US’s national public radio system, someone asked if this would finally get Congress to do something about gun-involved violence. (For those of you not in the US, what people are asking for is strict NATION-WIDE controls to lessen the chance of a criminal or mentally/emotionally unstable person being allowed to buy a gun or ammo. In Utah, MINORS can legally buy guns as long as they have permission from a parent…and I guess it’s impossible to forge a note….) The other person stated a mind-blowing truth: The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School changed literally nothing. Hundreds of staff and children went to school on the morning of December 14th, 2012, and six staff and a whopping TWENTY CHILDREN, little kindergarteners and first-graders, were dead by 10am, and the fucking government did NOTHING!!! Of COURSE a couple dead adult-victims and a third fighting for her life won’t matter….
But what about when a politician is the one who is shot? In 2001, Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. Another eighteen people were shot. Six, including a child, died. Miraculously, Gabrielle survived. But no real change to the gun laws have happened. In fact, Arizona is the third most lenient state when it comes to gun-control laws.
What about if a president is shot? We’ve had 42 different presidents (the official count is 43 only because Grover Cleveland served non-cosecutive terms, making him count as both the 22nd and 24th). Of that few, four were assassinated. Almost 10% of our presidents were shot to death. And the only time a shooting made a difference was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in early 1981, where he was non-fatally shot, and an assistant, James Brady, was paralyzed. But all that happened ended up being nothing. The Brady Bill mandated background checks and a five-day waiting period. However, in 1997 the National Rifle Association argued that it was unconstitutional on 10th amendment grounds, claiming the federal government couldn’t mandate checks. Incredibly, the supreme court agreed, and all federal regulations were tossed out. So even when presidents are killed and more shot, STILL nothing happens.
America has become incredibly complacent when it comes to violence and death. By “America,” I mean our politicians. They won’t do anything. Those purchased politicians know who lines their pockets. While many will posture and claim, and a few will genuinely mean it, most of them will not do a single thing. Within a week, today will be known as “remember when those people were killed by that guy,” as the next tragedy happens. Alison and Adam are only known names today because their murders were aired live on American TV. But they will be forgotten by most, and we’ll all sit here, emotionally tired of begging the powers that be to DO something. All WE can do is write letters and pressure and hope for the best. In a political system where you have to have a lot of money to compete, where most of the competitors are the same, voting won’t have an effect. But our begging, and the faces of twenty little children, isn’t enough.
How can we expect domestic violence and rape to be treated as a big deal when “at least she wasn’t murdered”? Our politicians doing nothing but put on an act, and nothing changes for the safer or better. All the happens is another day passes, and another tragedy. Abuse and rape are small compared to murder. We are becoming desensitized to the “smaller” problems of abuse and rape, even though they happen to more people every day. And even today, the murders of two and attempted murder of another are only news-worthy because they happened live on television. We’re sick and tired of nothing happening, and have been through this so often that, as a nation, we’re becoming numb to is just to prevent ourselves from living in a state of perpetual grief. If we let it in each and every time, we’d so nothing but sit here sad. We can get angry, but nothing changes.
As a parent, I get to live with the non-stop nausea that my child’s in a country where violence and rape and murder is just business as usual. Today, Alison’s and Adam’s families and friends are grieving, and Vicki’s family and friends are hoping, praying, so all they can to beg for a recovery, because the previous murders led to more business as usual, and after today, it’ll be more business as usual. Another day, another name; another day, another name forgotten.
Alys Marchand 
Our culture is in a terrible state in terms of mental health. I’m not saying he had a disorder, but obviously he wasn’t equipped with coping skills or something, because killing the people you blame for your being fired is beyond “over-reacting.” I think there’s this mind-set among many Americans that failure is the end of the world. You fail a grade, you’ll never get into a decent college. You fail college, you’ll never get a decent job. That’s not true and it’s a miserable way to live. We have high schoolers and twenty year olds talking about how their life is over when it has just barely started. People get depressed, people get angry, people get addicted, people rape, people kill, all because something goes wrong. That’s not the mind-set of a healthy culture.
Of course, that’s not the only thing wrong with our culture, but I was reading an article about it in Psychology Today, and it really spoke to me and my own experience.
What he did was inexcusable; he had to have known what he did was wrong. If we equip people with tools to deal with their problems in healthy ways, though, they may find themselves not even contemplating killing people in the first place.
Guns are terrifying and too many people use them as a first resort rather than a last. Your goal in using a gun should never be to kill someone. If you have to shoot them, aim for a leg or something. When I hear about people coming home to find a burgler is in their house and shooting the thief, rather than leaving and calling the police, that screams to me of vigilante justice, not self-defense. It’s a callous disregard for a human being, thinking that they deserve to die because they’re taking your things. That’s not an eye for an eye, that’s an eye for a scratch.
I’m personally grateful for the responsible people with guns, because I’m paranoid that one day we may need them. I don’t know what sort of realistic situation would require armed civilians, but I keep thinking anything can happen. For those who aren’t responsible with guns and disregard the value of a life, I hope we find a way to weed them out during the screening process. I don’t have any practical solutions to offer, just a hope that some day this sort of senseless violence will stop.
We’re in an extremely high-pressure society where we work more hours in a week than every other country in the entire world, and are the only developed nation with no mandated paid time off, not even to recover from childbirth (even Mid-East countries gives its working women time off!!). We’re working to the bone to pay basic bills, and a quarter of all our children live in poverty because there isn’t enough money. It’s easy to understand how an F or something else minor can be seen a a huge set-back. There’s no room for error, however small. Today’s newly-minted young adults and college grads were teenagers or younger when the recession hit. All they know is the stress of trying to find work. The aren’t like my generation, the previous one where we ignorantly thought that we’d all get jobs paying $50k out the gate because we saw people get good jobs just by trying.
Would you mind sharing the link to the article you read?
He may or may not have had the tools to cope with his life. He may have seen himself as a martyr of sorts. We don’t know yet. I don’t think his manifesto nor the contents of the potential suicide letters have been released yet. It may be a while before much is shared with the public.
I agree that a lot of people are too quick to shoot to kill. Police shooting to kill even people who literally pose no threats are common occurrences. I think some people think that, if the police can do it, why not them? Why can’t they do it? And yes, it does demote human life. While burglary is wrong, of course, not all burglars are doing it for personal kicks or drug money. I’ve heard of people doing it because they need money to pay for medical treatment or medication, and they have nothing left.
A few years ago, there was a mall shooting not too far from me. I was on my way to the mall with my daughter, planning to get lunch and do some shopping, but felt sick, and turned the car around. Soon after getting home, I saw breaking news of a shooter at that mall, at that food court, and we’d have been there. The shooter did kill a couple people, but, in a detail downplayed in the media, a civilian with a legal concealed carry pulled out his gun and aimed it at the shooter. That civilian, Nick Meli, did not shoot. He was too concerned he’d hit a bystander. But it didn’t matter. The gunman saw Nick, and ran into a stairwell. Even without pulling the trigger, that armed civilian saved people. I know a lot of people say the chance of that happening is too small to justify legal concealed permits, but I can tell you, for the people there who didn’t but, but could have, their lives may be one of the lived saved by Nick having that gun.
Civilians saving lives doesn’t make for good news. It’s a momentary story, unlike shootings that give a few days of headlines.