What can be done...

…against such reckless hate?

You may recognize my title and lead-in this week. But maybe you don’t. It’s a paraphrase of what King Theoden says in The Two Towers when it looks like Helm’s Deep will fall. He’s in the midst of despair—his people are dying around him to a hoard of Uruk-hai who are relentless and formidable. He’s given up hope.

I have felt a hopelessness like this. It’s heavy in the chest and presses down on your spine and belly. You want to fight, but your body feels like a lead balloon.

You see, I went to Texas a few weeks ago. I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law, we went to a Ren Faire. We had a wonderful time—the vibes were immaculate!

And while we were in a magical place, a tragedy was taking place not far away.

You see, we got news towards the end of the day that there had been a mass shooting at one of the outlet malls in Dallas. At the time we heard, there were still a lot of questions about how many were injured, where at the mall it happened, and what was the motivation of the shooter.

We joked that it was over parking.

We joked.

Dear reader, we are desensitized.

We were also coping.

You see, my brother works at that outlet mall. And he and I were both there the day before.

I drove through the exact parking lot where this tragedy occurred. If we had been delayed a day, it could have been me. It could have been my brother. He knew one of the victims.

Instead, we were tucked away, safely cradled by a Ren Faire.

The news was heavy that day. And the next. And even now, I feel it balled up in my chest.

I didn’t know what logistically takes place when something like this happens. I didn’t know that all of the stores would have to be cleared by a SWAT team. I didn’t know that all the vehicles would have to stay at the mall until they were cleared. I didn’t know that personal belongings would have to stay in the stores.

I didn’t know the trauma would be so far-reaching, so all-consuming.

I was foolishly naïve.

When I returned to Nebraska, my coworkers would ask how my trip was. I didn’t tell most of them that it was tainted by how utterly close this shooting was to my family.

But when I did tell some friends—they didn’t even know a shooting had happened. They didn’t know that 8 people had died at the hands of one man—that the youngest of these victims was a 3-year old. They didn’t know that 7 more were injured. They didn’t know that one of the injured was a mom who lost both of her babies. I think about her a lot, because I know in my bones that she wishes she had died instead of her babies. I also think about the little boy who lost his entire family in one afternoon.

The Allen Outlet shooting happened on May 6. On May 6, there was also a shooting in Tunica, Mississippi with 4 injured. And Columbus, Ohio had a shooting where there was 1 death and 3 injuries (the shooter also died). In another incident in Columbus, Ohio, 10 people were injured. In Chico, California 1 died and 5 were injured. That was just May 6. I hadn’t heard about any of those other shootings until I looked it up.

In the US, this year alone there have 185 shootings, 254 killed, 708 wounded. (These stats are pulled from Wikipedia.)

What can be done against such reckless hate?

Do you feel that despair?

I led a book talk for class earlier this year about a graphic novel called Made in Korea by Jeremy Holt. It’s a story that explores adoption and A.I., and a major plot point of this book is a school shooting. I thought it would be interesting to compare the development of A.I. with the history of school shootings. I (naively) only expected to see the school shootings I had heard about in the list on Wikipedia. There are two articles on Wikipedia for school shootings in the United States—one for shootings before 2000, and one for shootings after 2000. When I first discovered this, I thought it strange that the 1990s would get their own article separated from the rest.

Reader, the first documented school shooting is from 1840, when a professor was shot by a student.

From then on, the page is organized by decade. There’s a huge increase in the 1970s, with 42 incidents. And then in the 1990s there were 99.

In the 2000s there were 80 school shootings—that’s a little better.

In the 2010s there were 261 school shootings.

In the 2020s so far there have been 136 school shootings. ( Looks like we’re aiming high since there are 7 years left in this decade.)

And those are just the stats for school shootings—that doesn’t include the banks, malls, parties, clubs, parks, and anywhere else there are people.

What can be done against such reckless hate, indeed.

I once made a post on this blog about not being a political blog. How privileged was I to make that choice—to choose to be ignorant. (And that is what I was doing.)

Let’s look back at The Two Towers. Theoden is in despair, but we know that is not the end of the story. So what happens next?

Aragorn gives an impassioned invocation about riding out to meet the enemy. And Theoden answers, “For death and glory.” They are going to give every last piece of themselves to defend what they hold dear.

It’s a moving scene.

Well, I have no weapon but my words.

I’ve been scared to speak out because I am afraid of being alienated—of people I know and love being disgusted by my thought process. But if I am silent and do not try to defend that which I love, then the despair wins.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to even have this conversation. I grew up in a rural conservative part of the country. There are guns here—lots of them. Mostly they’re used for hunting, but there are also hobbyists. I have family that consider guns a hobby. I know all the rhetoric about our second amendment rights.

I also believe that when that amendment was written, the writers never once imagined those weapons would be turned on our own babies. (And don’t be deceived, that is what is happening.)

So why haven’t we passed any common sense gun laws? Why do we feel the need to have weapons intended for warfare in the hands of the general public?

Let’s say you have a classroom policy where you allow the students to use any kind of writing utensil they want—markers, crayons, pencils, pens, whatever, you don’t care. Just so long as they’re following along and doing what they’re supposed to do, you don’t mind. Then there’s one kid who brings a Sharpie. Not great—they’re permanent, obviously—but you decide they can handle it. It’ll be fine. And then it bleeds through the paper and gets on the desk. You should have expected that to happen, but it’s not that big of a deal. They’ll use a different writing utensil the next day, surely. Then it happens again the next day, but not only that, another kid has brought a Sharpie and it’s not just bleeding through the paper. They actually write on the desk, as kids are wont to do.

What do you do?

Do you say, “I have a policy that doesn’t care what writing utensil they use, and I will not be moved.”?

Or, do you say, “You know what? That policy worked fine for a while, but now I need to make an adjustment…”? And then put a no Sharpie rule in place.

We make rules and adjustments like this all the time, for way lesser offenses than gun violence.

I know that I’m not the first person to say we need tighter gun laws. And I know that we have a system that likes the money it makes off of gun sales….

But maybe you’re just as surprised as I am by the sheer volume of shootings that have happened this year, and how long this has been going on.

I’m very familiar with the argument that it’s a heart issue—these attackers have a screw loose or they have mental health problems. Those things might be true—and while I have personally said things like this, I believe and understand it to be ableist to say this. But, if you have a kiddo who likes to throw things when they’re angry, you’re going to make sure they don’t have access to things that can cause serious injury, right? You’ll make sure they can’t reach the things that could hurt themselves or others. Sure, there are some kids that will find something harmful no matter what, but if we could even cut the number of injuries in half, wouldn’t it be worth it?

How did it come to this?