Maybe It Was Too Soon, and Maybe I Need to Say Something

(everyone, everyplace, and everything) Source

I promised myself that I would post every day this month. That was the point of the FPNEPAC - I love music, and even if I had nothing to say, I could put a video up every day. Then Friday happened, and Christmas and joyfulness seemed entirely inappropriate. For two days I said that I didn't want to talk about guns and politics. Then I posted a Christmas song in the interest of moving on. That didn't feel right either. Today I feel like I might have the clarity of thought to discuss guns and politics, but it is my hope that I do it in such a way as to not detract from the reality of what has happened in Connecticut, and to  not use this to forward some sort of political agenda. I just have some observations based on my own life experience. I don’t have a political agenda - I have a social one. So, here we go.

As I said before, I am usually the kind of person who is stone cold about tragedies. I try to empathize with the perpetrators and show compassion where everyone else wants to point fingers and blame. Right now, the families of the victims are doing a much better job at that than I am. When I read that Robbie Parker, whose daughter was killed, had nothing but empathy for the shooter’s family, I cried. I've cried a lot about this. The fact that he’s carrying grief and devastation, but not anger or rage is just incredible. I’m not there.

While I know it's beyond wrong, I can understand why a person might go ballistic and kill a slew of adults for no reason. But this person intentionally sought out and murdered children. I have had many conversations wherein I said that I did not believe in evil. I have played devil's advocate for serial killers and genocidal maniacs. I now stand corrected. This act was nothing short of evil, and I'm not to the point where I can be compassionate about him or his motives. I'm mad. I hurt. I want a justice that can never be.

I am still uninterested in the politicizing of this matter, though I recently learned that the killer was trained to shoot by his mother, an avid gun collector and his first victim. The firearms used to commit this carnage came from Mrs. Lanza’s personal arsenal. The internet seems to be pointing the finger of blame at her. “She was a gun nut! It’s her fault!” We need someone to blame after all. Blame isn't going to erase it though. It's not going to be any easier to digest once if we decide that this woman created the monster that eventually killed her. Blame is not going to make us feel any better. I don't know that anything can. The blaming only serves to make us look like a mob of scared villagers wielding pitchforks and torches.

Personally, I do not like guns. They scare the hell out of me. When I was a child, we had a shotgun, or a rifle - something that was long and skinny with big bullets in it - and I was told in no uncertain terms to never ever touch it, as it could kill me. Later we were taught about gun safety in school by Eddie Eagle. "If you see a gun, Stop! Don't touch! Leave the area! Tell an Adult!" I am now an adult myself, and I still want to do exactly as Eddie Eagle instructed whenever I should find myself near a firearm.

 A few weekends ago I was at a party with some people my husband works with in the Army. I joked that if I am part of the Army (as a military spouse) then I deserved to carry a weapon. Being cheeky, the host brought out an unloaded handgun and gave it to me. I really wanted to cry, but I tried as politely as possible to give it back to him without throwing it across the room. I held it gingerly with my fingertips and insisted he take it away NOW. I feel like even touching one is dangerous. You should never, ever touch guns. Thanks, Eddie.

My fear of guns is absolute. I fired one - once - and cried. My husband, being in the military, and also of the mind that firearms are needed to protect the home, feels that I should become comfortable with guns in case I ever need to defend myself from an intruder. I think this is silly. The reality of that situation is that if I were ever faced with a home invasion, I'm already as good as dead. I would panic. I would freeze. I would forget to take the safety off. I would forget that there ever was a gun. My first instinct would be to get my child and run away. I would climb out a window or lock myself in a closet before I ever considered using a gun. If I were made comfortable with firearms all it could do is hurt me.

I suffer from bouts of depression. I've been told that I am bi-polar, but I have my doubts. At any rate, there are days when I feel suicidal. Thankfully, my fear of guns keeps me from taking the family one out of the top drawer and doing myself in. What if I were comfortable touching it? What if I actually knew how to use it? I am terrified that in a low moment I would use it one myself.

This is not to say that I think all guns should be done away with. Far from it. I am from an agrarian community in a red state. People love their guns. They hunt for food and shoot at targets for recreation. I don't want to do that, but if that's your thing, that's fine. They argue that in some hunting, you need a semi-automatic weapon. Suppose you were shooting a bear and missed. Alright, fair enough. But there's no reason to have an AK 47, pretty much ever, which is what my best friends little brother went and bought the day he turned 18. Not a 9mm, not a rifle, not a shotgun, an AK. Just because. I don't think he's ever going to go off the deep end and use it for nefarious reasons, but it's kind of appalling that people just have those.

As to the hunting - yes, you need more than one shot if you are trying to kill a bear. You do not need a magazine with 30 rounds if you are trying to kill a bear. A Ruger 44, a semi-automatic hunting rifle has a 4 shot non detachable magazine, more than enough to get the job done if you know what you’re doing.  A standard magazine for an AK 47 is 30 rounds. You can buy a magazine with up to 100 rounds for this gun. I’m sorry, do bear travel in a heard like buffalo? If you are trying to kill a bear and your aim is so lousy that you need at least 30 rounds to inhume the beast, then maybe you ought not be hunting.

I’m not against gun ownership. I’m never going to own one though, and I think that this culture of “OMG! WE MUST KEEP OUR HOME ARSENALS!” is kind of ridiculous. The voices I hear the loudest advocating for gun ownership, in my personal life, are people who have no business and no reason to own a gun in the first place. My husband cries out for gun rights. He’s gone hunting once. He missed, and the deer got away. He’s been to the shooting range 3 times in as many years. My mother has not fired her revolver in at least a decade. My brother in law hasn’t had the money to go hunting in as long. Yet they all cling to their guns as though they were the very breath of life itself, and I have no earthly idea why. Just in case, I guess. Just in case someone wants to do something appalling.

This is about so much more than guns though. Even though I am more or less anti-gun, I’m not sure that I believe that guns are the root of the problem. We need to get off our phones, MP3 players, tablets, and laptops and back to rebuilding our communities. The news keeps telling me what a tight knit community Newtown, Connecticut is. That's one thing that we can all be grateful for - they will rally together and get through this. How many of us can say the same about our own communities?

Do you know your neighbors? How many people do you make small talk with in the grocery store? Are you engaged when you are at social events or are you too busy playing Angry Birds on your phone? Do you help people? Do you know the needs of your community? What's your mayor's name? How about your aldermen/women? What about your mailman? Your postmaster? Your bank teller? Your librarian? If you don't think these things, these people, are important, think again. Personal relationships build a strong community. Everybody wants one, yet no one wants to work to build one. We're too busy managing our virtual lives. We've become like real life Sims characters.

I have so much compassion and empathy for all the families, the children, and the community involved in this horror. These people need all the love and support that we can muster as a nation. We need to spread loving kindness, compassion, and understanding everywhere that we can. In the interest of trying to find compassion for Adam Lanza, I have to wonder if he ever felt like part of the community. The internet also tells me that he was a "loner", "weird", "gamer", "quiet", and all the other negatively charged words that come up about a person when these things happen. Someone had the nerve to write "Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were 5 years old. As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised . . . Burn in hell, Adam." Pleasant, huh? I wonder, if everyone was of the mind that the young man was a basket case, why did no one reach out to him? Why did no one offer him some help?

There's a lot of talk about the state and availability of mental health care in this country in the wake of these horrors, but I say talk is cheap. It would seem that people are advocating something akin to involuntary sterilization to these people. Mentally ill adults have the right to decline and/or refuse treatment. This is not as easy as "Well, if he would have been on the right meds and seeing a shrink." There are some very good reasons why people choose not to medicate. I am one of them. Pills and Psychotherapy are not always the solution.

People need to feel like they are a part of something, which brings me back to the community thing. There are tons of people who say they "knew" him, and yet very few people claiming to have been his "friend". This is a very important distinction. Another person was quoted as saying Adam was "socially awkward". You know how you get over being socially awkward? By socializing with people. I would venture to guess that at least half of the friends I ever had in high school, in college, and ever after, could have been classified as "socially awkward". Those of you who have known me for 100 years may recall certain boyfriends? And you know what, those "socially awkward" people I was friends with found a place and flourished once they found a place where they belonged. Being nice to someone is never a bad idea, but shunning someone for being different almost always is.

What's my point? Am I blaming Adam Lanza's peers for what happened? No. I'm just saying that being nice and reaching out to people is important. That's how you build a community. Ever notice how it's never people with a solid social group who go off and do these things? It's always "he was quiet, kept to himself". What have any of us got to lose by being nice and reaching out to a loner? Nothing. It's free. All it takes is a little bit of character and personal courage. Sadly, I think these are two traits that are noticeably lacking in our society right now. We need to sow the seeds of change. Talk to a stranger. Go on. I dare you.