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Unthinkable

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Candlelight Vigil

It’s been one week since an unthinkable tragedy occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. It’s one of those events that seems to transcend the normal rules of space and time: the emotional wounds are still fresh and raw, like it just happened yesterday, but at the same time, it’s hard to remember what normal American life was like before it happened. I’ve been in a funk since last Friday, unable to think about anything for long without my thoughts drifting towards Newtown. I’ve been searching for words to say, to write, but I keep coming back to “what is there to say?” So as a fair warning, I probably don’t have anything new or profound to add to the discussion. But I think it’ll help me to write some of these thoughts down.


Yesterday, I drove back home to my parents’ house for my family’s annual Christmas celebrations. After arriving in the evening, I went out for a late night run. As I turned off my parents’ street, a spur-of-the-moment decision led me to turn instead into the school complex in which I grew up and from which I graduated. As I ran by the elementary school and then the high school, I looked at the dark buildings illuminated eerily by the emergency lighting, looking more threatening than ever before. As I turned out of the school complex, I ran through the village, which I remember fondly as your typical idyllic small town. The thought struck me that there are more similarities than differences between Newtown and Perry. It could have happened here.

It almost did happen here, once. When I was in seventh grade, a student in my grade, a few years older but with whom I was on speaking terms, made threats against the school and against several students. The threats weren’t taken seriously at first, but when he didn’t show up to school one day and no one could locate him, students were sent home a little earlier than normal while he was tracked down. I don’t remember a lot of publicity about the incident; just a letter to the parents and a uniformed police officier in the buildings (the three schools are connected) from then on. At the time it was pretty easy to dismiss the threats as just that: threats. But earlier this year, that same student was convicted of the rape and murder of a waitress in our county.

And speaking of our county, it happened here too, just this year. At Chardon High School, a school about twice as large as Perry but only a half hour away. It seems like forever ago, and maybe we’ve forgotten about it somewhat because of the other tragic shootings that have occurred since. But Chardon is a lot like Perry, a lot like Newtown, an idyllic small town, the kind of town where this thing doesn’t happen.


Last Friday, hours after the shooting, a group of friends and I went Christmas caroling to some local seniors’ houses in the Columbia area. We would drive to a house, ring the doorbell, say some hellos and then start singing. And after we were done singing, we talked for a little bit, and it surprised me that several of the seniors didn’t avoid the subject of the shooting, didn’t just back into the subject, but came right out and started talking about it. I don’t know that this tendency was significant, but I noticed. It was on their minds. They wanted to talk about it. And I get the feeling that even though they’ve may have seen some awful things in their life (September 11, TWA 800, Oklahoma City, Lockerbie, Columbine, etc.), this one was different. I get the feeling that they weren’t seeing the children of the parents of Newtown, but instead they were seeing their grandkids among the victims. And maybe that’s why I’m struggling with this: because it’s so easy to identify with the victims and their families, who could have been our neighbors, members of our churches, or on a community sports team.
The United States isn’t the only country mourning an attack at a school last Friday: on the same day, a Chinese villager used a knife to injure 22 kids at the gate of a school. There were a lot of similarities in the two attacks, but one major difference: there were no fatalities in China. It was a savage and criminal attack that will scar those children both physically and emotionally, yes. But if you asked the parents of the Newtown tragedy, I’m sure they’d trade that to have their children back.
Much has been said and written about the role of guns in these tragedies, with potential solutions ranging from arming toddlers to banning all guns everywhere. I don’t know what the answer here is. I do know two things: 1) I don’t believe that any situation has ever been calmed down by adding firearms to the equation, and 2) I’m extremely happy that I can put my faith in something more concrete, a perfect and loving God. And that’s really the only true answer here: because no matter what combination of guns you put in a classroom, there’s always the potential for it to escalate (see: Mexico). All I can really do is put my faith in God and believe he has a plan for my life and the lives of the people I care about.

I think it’s a bit of an oversimplification to say that “we have a mental health problem in this country.” To me, that’s a little like reacting to the September 11th attacks by saying “we have a fundamentalist Muslim problem in this country.” There is always going to be evil, there is always going to be sickness. We can make strides in diagnosing and treating mental health, but we’re going to have to do something else more immediately.

The two things that come to mind are adding security to the schools themselves, and restricting the availability of high-powered weapons. Securing the schools is also a two-facet problem: first, retrofitting the doors and windows with more sturdy material, and making the school more lockdown-ready; second: adding personnel (not necessarily armed) to monitor surveillance cameras and keep eyes on the inside and outside of the school at all times.

And let’s be real: the right to bear arms doesn’t need to mean the right to bear an assault rifle. These kinds of high-powered weapons are meant for military and law enforcement personnel only, and ordinary citizens shouldn’t be able to obtain them easily. Here’s one idea: heavily tax new purchases and require yearly registrations and fees on, and with the proceeds, fund the security of local schools. And let me clarify that I don’t believe this should apply to all guns, and that law enforcement personnel should be the ones to determine how weapons should be classified.

Here’s the bottom line: we have to do something. We say our kids’ safety is the number one priority, but the shattering of that safety is becoming dangerously close to a trend.


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