I’ve been trying to think what to write in the face of events in Newtown, CT. Words fail me. I remember being the age of those children; I remember having children that age. First graders are among the most innocent creatures on earth – in many ways they are humanity at its sweetest. I just have no words for their murders.
What I do have is some thoughts about the pattern of murder/suicide that repeats and repeats across America. When it’s “just” a man murdering his girlfriend or wife and then shooting himself, it barely rates a mention on the news, so accustomed have we become to this pattern.
Here’s my proposal: let’s quit referring to these guys as “shooters” or “gunmen.” Both of those words call up images of the Old West and of John Wayne. One almost gets the feeling, from those words, that it’s just the manly thing to do. News flash: there is nothing “manly” about killing the people you love or other helpless souls and then sidestepping consequences by shooting yourself, too. It’s an act of either supreme insanity or cowardice, or both.
So let’s call them what they are: cowards. No more news reports about “the shooter” please: refer to him as the coward who shot himself when he heard the cops coming. Refer to them as “criminals.”
I believe we need to take a hard look at gun laws, and a hard look at the resources available to the mentally ill, but in the meantime, let’s call this what it is: a criminal act, a cowardly act. Such an act is not romantic and it does not “send a message.” Yes, we will remember – because we refuse to forget the victims, but let’s assure future perpetrators that we will remember them only with disgust.
May the souls of all those injured in this and every other act of gun violence this week be comforted in the arms of God, and in the love of friends and family.