At some point following one of the many mass shootings in America over the past several years (I can’t remember which one, and not because of my advancing age), a simple truth occurred to me. My feelings haven’t changed since then. If anything, they have gotten stronger.
To live in America currently means to accept the possibility of being shot and killed, anywhere.
It’s just another one of the risks we assume when getting out of bed in the morning and going about our day. Lightning strike. Car accident. Tornado. Alligator in its natural habitat. Tiger that escaped from the zoo. Whatever. Many things can suddenly kill us, and someone else with a gun is clearly one of those many things.
I felt compelled to address the latest mass shooting at the top of Tuesday’s PFT Live, not to change minds or to share some sort of inspiring rhetoric that will turn red and blue into purple on this issue but because to become desensitized to these events is to forfeit our humanity.
“Only seven died, that’s a relief” should not be the default response to incidents that should always be horrifying.
It’s difficult not to become numb to all of it. Human beings adapt. We adjust. To live in this country is to accept the possibility, very slim but very real, of dying in this country while staring at someone who is aiming the barrel of an assault rifle directly at your forehead.
Don’t like it, leave. I guess. Where would we go? Who has the ability to just pick up and move to a country where we wouldn’t have to worry about going to school or church or the grocery store or wherever and having our lives or the life of a family member snuffed out by someone who has both hopelessly lost their mind and easily acquired a weapon of war?
There are many causes. Political realities prevent real solutions. I’m not mentioning any of this to try to fix something that seems to be unfixable. We just have to accept the risk, if we want to stay here.
We also have to wear the shame of being unable to protect our children. It’s a pass-fail test, and we are failing. We have failed. Repeatedly. Countless families have been forever destroyed by the cruel bouncing of the tiny steel ball on a roulette wheel that came to a stop with their most precious members in the worst possible places at the worst possible times.
I could try to justify addressing the issue by saying it eventually will happen outside the gates to an NFL stadium. It could. It possibly will. It almost happened before Super Bowl XLII in Arizona, more than 15 years ago.
I don’t need to justify it at all. I’m human. I’m affected by what happened. We all should be. While there may never be a solution to this problem (and I don’t expect one to come along in my lifetime), the chances of true change only get smaller and smaller if we find ourselves shattered by situations like this only when the total dead after a given mass shooting climbs to higher and higher numbers.
Every mass shooting is a tragedy. Every mass shooting should remind us that we have failed. Every mass shooting should inspire each of us to work toward becoming a people that is willing to find a solution and, above all else, that is capable of protecting our children.