April 17, 2007
The same old story; only the victims change
Almost exactly 8 years ago to the day -- April 22, 1999 -- the Los Angeles Daily News ran an op/ed piece I wrote about the Columbine murders.
I took another look at it this morning, and, with minor adjustments, it's just as relevant today as it was in '99.
THE echoes of gunfire have barely faded in the high-school hallways and already the punditocracy is hard at work. Grief "experts'' and school administrators offer platitudes and reassurances.
Surf the television channels and you find: "It couldn't happen here in Los Angeles-Phoenix-Mayberry-Ventura-wherever''; "We need to look for the warning signs''; "This is the result of our kids growing up in a violent society''; and of course, the biggie, "Why?''
The real problem is that we live in a messy, violent, unpredictable world.
Let me confess my biases. I am by profession a deputy district attorney. Every day I deal with defendants who want to "get on with my life, man.'' People who are looking for "closure, y'know?'' Criminals who are willing to accept responsibility for their actions, "But only if I can plead 'no contest' instead of 'guilty.' ''
There are no easy answers and no solutions, no measures we can take to prevent certain crimes.
An administrator from the Los Angeles Unified School District spoke of how our kids are safer in one of the Southland's schools, equipped as they are with metal detectors.
Yeah, right.
Doesn't it stand to reason that those same teens who at latest count had slaughtered 15 of their classmates and teachers, when confronted with a metal detector, probably wouldn't say "The jig is up, for if we attempt to enter the school these confounded machines will reveal the presence of our weapons and clue everyone in to the mayhem we seek to sow 30 seconds before we planned to begin, so maybe we'd better go home and watch "Celebrity Death Match'' on MTV.''
Wouldn't they instead say, "Let's shoot the rent-a-cop working at the metal detector, too.''
Americans are without question among the most ahistorical of people; we don't know the names of current members of the president's Cabinet, much less any of the important figures of past decades.
Our collective attention-deficit disorder enables us to quickly forget yet another important lesson of history: Since the beginning of time, people have committed the most monstrous acts for the most unfathomable reasons.
If we look back, say to this evening's news, we saw images of terrified Albanian Kosovar refugees, Nike-clad teens and wide-eyed tots who look just like your neighbors. Why are they on the move? Because their neighbors, people they see every day at work, the market, the cafe have decided to kill their neighbors, classmates, former friends.
Does the "why'' really matter?
Why did the Nazis decide to continue slaughtering Jews in the final days of the war, when the military resources could have been used to delay the Russian advance?
Why is it that for every Oskar Schindler who fights evil (a man who also acted for reasons known only to himself), there were millions of ordinary citizens who did nothing, and thousands who whole-heartedly joined in the slaughter.
Closer to home, why would someone kidnap a mother and two teen-age girls, murder them and leave their incinerated bodies in a car trunk?
Why would an elderly woman's next-door neighbor, a man she likes and trusts, help her put her Christmas tree in the trash and then return later to rob her, stuff her in the trunk of her car and beat her to death?
It is not an easy answer but the answer is that evil exists.
Americans claim to be a God-fearing, churchgoing people, but why, oh, why are they so willing to accept angels but so resistant to the concept of evil, real evil?
This isn't the evil of a demon; we're talking Hannah Arendt's banality of evil, the kind of evil that lets bitter little men put on uniforms and oversee the bureaucracy of genocide, the Hitlers and Himmlers and Milosevics of the world, the kind of men perhaps these Colorado killers might have grown into had they had the patience.
Americans are suckers for the easy answer; the painful truths that the rest of the world lives with are best left to others. Turn on the television. Observe this truth: If you change channels fast enough, it's almost impossible to tell which shocked, grief-stricken woman is looking to see if her child survived the hell of Kosovo or the hell of homeroom.
It is as it ever was. Unfortunately.
This morning I heard nothing but vapid, banal, intensely stupid reporting from hushed TV journalists, who interviewed gloriously inarticulate and ill-informed college students from the East Coast, all of whom were quick to mention how important it was for the "healing" to begin.
One co-ed offered that perhaps metal detectors might be useful outside the classrooms.
A college student who was also a resident assistant in the dorms at NYU offered a shout out to his fellow fraternity brothers at Virginia Tech, adding that he was available if anyone wanted to talk through their feelings.
What a bunch of revolting pyscho-babble and pie-in-the-sky meanderings.
The only good thing to come of this is that the killer is dead, saving the taxpayers the cost of a trial and his incarceration.
But it's also noteworthy that the killing continued until the murderer decided it was over. No one else ended the mayhem; he did, when he put a bullet in his brain. Not the campus cops, not the local police or SWAT. Students died until the killer decided he'd had his fill.
And then -- and only then -- he fired his final shot.
Good riddance.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 17, 2007 02:26 PM
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Comments
It's time for sensible gun control. There is no reason for any person to own a rifle or pistol that fires dozens of bullets in a matter of seconds. How can anyone claim that such a weapon is designed for defensive purposes?
I realize that people have the right to hunt, shoot at cans and defend their homes. All gun owners should be trained and licensed before they are allowed to purchase a firearm. Any gun sold to a private citizen should be a hunting rifle, revolver or sporting or defensive shotgun only. All semi-automatic guns should be banned for civilian use.
Any thinking person can look at the cost-benefit analysis of the current firearm problem facing the United States and conclude that semi-automatic handguns provide little self-defense benefit beyond a revolver and at the same create a tremendous risk of mass carnage. Ban them!
Posted by: Tom S. at April 17, 2007 11:46 PM