Friday, July 20, 2012
Dark Night
Woke up this morning to news of a massacre at a midnight movie premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. Twelve dead, 59 injured, some critically. At first, moviegoers thought the man in the SWAT gear who released a tear gas canister before he started shooting, was part of the movie special effects. And then he calmly opened fire. So strange that I mentioned this movie in yesterday's post. I know my daughter's friend, who is so passionate about Batman he wrote his college essay about the character, is heartbroken today. As we all are. I always want to know the motives in cases like this, I gather the details obsessively, trying to work out what provokes such horror, the moment in the life of the shooter where everything went irrevocably wrong. I am never satisfied, because really, it never entirely makes sense. I remember reading about the Columbine boys who committed that massacre at their high school, a whole book on their lives up to that point, including interviews with their parents, and there was nothing there that helped me truly understand, even though one of the boys seemed to have been a sociopath who extremely influenced the other. At this moment, there is a forensic psychiatrist on TV saying this act is "darkness turned inside out." The shooter was a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience, who was in the process of withdrawing from his doctoral program. And now Colorado, the nation, is once again soaked in sorrow.
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yes.
ReplyDeletei'd made a very careful comment on my (stupid, non-liked by me, maintained for family connections) facebook that gun people sure do love their weapons and got a comment from a dead friend's sister that she sure does wish every responsible gun owner would carry them with them everywhere it was legally possible to do so. i was like...wow and ended the discussion because the idea of living in a world with a zillion people carrying guns in their belt loops or bags just...fly me to the moon, okay? and then my daugther popped into the trail and pretty much called her crazy. but that's because she was brought up by me and feels about guns the way i do.
the columbine boys obsessed me for awhile, too. they hurt my heart. i looked at their parents and felt terrible pain for them. i can't imagine what that must have been like - is like. i do know good people who have had children raised side by side with okay folks but who have turned bad. it does happen.
i'm babbling. but yes. the whole thing. so, so terrible.
It's so interesting to see how people react after a tragic mass murder like this. So many of my friends posting on Facebook and Twitter, and they are so clearly divided: either they believe that making guns illegal would prevent things like this, or they believe that the ability for every citizen to be armed at all times would prevent things like this. Everyone is yelling but no one is listening, everyone already has their minds made up.
ReplyDeleteThe details that are coming out about his full plan are horrifying. He's an intelligent person who apparently didn't seem to be a potential mass murderer.