Another tragedy, another day without solutions
03/12/15 05:49
I know that there are no words to explain the violence in San Bernardino yesterday. Still, there is something in me that keeps trying to understand what happened and how such violence can be prevented. As our President said, “We have a pattern of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.”
I am troubled by the shootings. I know that the behaviors of the shooters are irrational and there is no way to explain their actions according to the way I think.
I am even more troubled by what seems to be official indifference to the issue.
Yesterday morning, before the violence erupted in San Bernardino, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to deliver a petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.
Get this straight: we have laws in our country that prevent our federal government from conducting research to understand the problem.
Apparently not everyone wants to figure out what is going on.
I wish someone could understand it enough to suggest plausible solutions.
The horror of yesterday’s events is intensified by the setting where the shootings took place. It was a center that provides employment, housing, and a host of other services for persons with developmental disabilities. It appears that the focus of the violence wasn’t the people being served by the institution, but rather participants in a group that were using the conference room for a social gathering. Still the horror was shared by those who serve and those who are served by the institution and their families.
I was in no way involved with the incident. I knew none of the victims. But I’m starting to take this personally. The apparent target of the shootings were employees of the county gathered for a holiday party. As a sheriff’s chaplain, I am a servant of employees of our county. The location was Inland Regional Center, a facility that serves people with developmental disabilities. In our community the comparable facility is Black Hills Works, a place where I volunteer regularly whose mission I fully embrace.
The shooting took place nearly 1,300 miles from our location. It was much too close to home.
There is no shortage of opinions on the topic in our country. I have spoken with people who believe that the solution is more weapons - that when shooters enter any place there should be armed people shooting back immediately. The thought of pitched gun battles with untrained, but heavily armed people doesn’t sound appealing to me and sounds like a recipe for increased, not decreased violence. But it is one of the possible “solutions” that I hear discussed.
What bothers me is that we don’t seem to be serious about getting information. We would rather argue about our opinions than collect solid data that could inform serious public policy. Congress has enacted laws that prevent the study of the issue.
What does it mean that we don’t want to discover the truth?
The sources I read are full of speculation about the shooters. It appears that the were a young couple, who left their baby in the care of a grandmother before carrying out what was a planned attack with serious weapons and large amounts of ammunition. They later were killed after engaging in a gun battle with police. Although some of the best crime investigators in the nation will work diligently to learn what can be learned from this particular incident, the complete motives of the shooters will never be fully known. That evidence died with the shooters.
14 people dead, 17 injured is only the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds are grieving the loss of loved ones. Hundreds more were traumatized by being forced to hide in offices, bathrooms and other parts of the facility. Many will be filled with terror at the thought of returning to that place for work or services. Some will never be able to return. An innocent child will grow up under the cloud of the heinous crime committed by parents.
And a nation will wait for the next mass shooting. It will come. So far in 2015, there have been 336 days and 355 mass shootings in the United States. A mass shooting is an incident with four or more victims including the shooter. June 13 and July 15 each saw five such incidents in our country. The San Bernardino incident wasn’t yesterday’s only event. In Savannah, Georgia, a gunman shot four people killing a woman and injuring three men. No suspect is in custody in the shooting. It barely warranted media coverage.
Big events like San Bernardino attract mass media coverage. They warrant comments from the President and commentators speaking of terrorism. The terror for individuals and families is just as great when there are only a handful of victims. The level of violence and our ability to simply live with it is astonishing to me.
I’m with the doctors who submitted their petition yesterday. This violence is a public health crisis. We need to bring the best of our minds and the best of our resources to understanding how to prevent such violence. We need to look at the differences between our country and other nations to try to figure out what makes mass shootings so much more common here than anywhere else in the world.
There will be plenty of emotional opinions and irrational fears expressed. There will be plenty of big money spent trying to influence the research. But this is a nation of good scientists with strong academic disciplines. When we make it a priority we are capable of understanding complex concepts and solving difficult problems. We have the resources to reduce the violence.
Now we need the will.
Nothing less is worthy of our time.
I am troubled by the shootings. I know that the behaviors of the shooters are irrational and there is no way to explain their actions according to the way I think.
I am even more troubled by what seems to be official indifference to the issue.
Yesterday morning, before the violence erupted in San Bernardino, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to deliver a petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.
Get this straight: we have laws in our country that prevent our federal government from conducting research to understand the problem.
Apparently not everyone wants to figure out what is going on.
I wish someone could understand it enough to suggest plausible solutions.
The horror of yesterday’s events is intensified by the setting where the shootings took place. It was a center that provides employment, housing, and a host of other services for persons with developmental disabilities. It appears that the focus of the violence wasn’t the people being served by the institution, but rather participants in a group that were using the conference room for a social gathering. Still the horror was shared by those who serve and those who are served by the institution and their families.
I was in no way involved with the incident. I knew none of the victims. But I’m starting to take this personally. The apparent target of the shootings were employees of the county gathered for a holiday party. As a sheriff’s chaplain, I am a servant of employees of our county. The location was Inland Regional Center, a facility that serves people with developmental disabilities. In our community the comparable facility is Black Hills Works, a place where I volunteer regularly whose mission I fully embrace.
The shooting took place nearly 1,300 miles from our location. It was much too close to home.
There is no shortage of opinions on the topic in our country. I have spoken with people who believe that the solution is more weapons - that when shooters enter any place there should be armed people shooting back immediately. The thought of pitched gun battles with untrained, but heavily armed people doesn’t sound appealing to me and sounds like a recipe for increased, not decreased violence. But it is one of the possible “solutions” that I hear discussed.
What bothers me is that we don’t seem to be serious about getting information. We would rather argue about our opinions than collect solid data that could inform serious public policy. Congress has enacted laws that prevent the study of the issue.
What does it mean that we don’t want to discover the truth?
The sources I read are full of speculation about the shooters. It appears that the were a young couple, who left their baby in the care of a grandmother before carrying out what was a planned attack with serious weapons and large amounts of ammunition. They later were killed after engaging in a gun battle with police. Although some of the best crime investigators in the nation will work diligently to learn what can be learned from this particular incident, the complete motives of the shooters will never be fully known. That evidence died with the shooters.
14 people dead, 17 injured is only the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds are grieving the loss of loved ones. Hundreds more were traumatized by being forced to hide in offices, bathrooms and other parts of the facility. Many will be filled with terror at the thought of returning to that place for work or services. Some will never be able to return. An innocent child will grow up under the cloud of the heinous crime committed by parents.
And a nation will wait for the next mass shooting. It will come. So far in 2015, there have been 336 days and 355 mass shootings in the United States. A mass shooting is an incident with four or more victims including the shooter. June 13 and July 15 each saw five such incidents in our country. The San Bernardino incident wasn’t yesterday’s only event. In Savannah, Georgia, a gunman shot four people killing a woman and injuring three men. No suspect is in custody in the shooting. It barely warranted media coverage.
Big events like San Bernardino attract mass media coverage. They warrant comments from the President and commentators speaking of terrorism. The terror for individuals and families is just as great when there are only a handful of victims. The level of violence and our ability to simply live with it is astonishing to me.
I’m with the doctors who submitted their petition yesterday. This violence is a public health crisis. We need to bring the best of our minds and the best of our resources to understanding how to prevent such violence. We need to look at the differences between our country and other nations to try to figure out what makes mass shootings so much more common here than anywhere else in the world.
There will be plenty of emotional opinions and irrational fears expressed. There will be plenty of big money spent trying to influence the research. But this is a nation of good scientists with strong academic disciplines. When we make it a priority we are capable of understanding complex concepts and solving difficult problems. We have the resources to reduce the violence.
Now we need the will.
Nothing less is worthy of our time.