This has been one of the hardest weekends I have experienced in my lifetime. The horrendous slaughter of 20 innocent 6 and 7 year olds and the 6 adults (teachers, staff & the principal) has broken me emotionally and spiritually. God Bless the victims and the survivors. May they be protected in heaven and on earth. This was not God’s will. As I’ve always said, and as was the crux of the services at my own son’s funeral, God gives us choices. He cannot and should not be blamed for every human tragedy. We as humans living as a species with the ability to choose must accept some of the blame most of the time.
I have heard that this perpetrator (I will not further validate him by even mentioning his name) in the SandyHook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut was “mentally ill”. He was autistic. But is that to blame for his senseless violence? It might have been a small pre-cursor, but I tend to believe not the reason at the core.
What else do we know about this young man and his life and his family relationship? He was living at home with his mother, though he had somehow gotten hold to his older brother’s identification which would implicate him in these murders. His older brother was not living there. What was his relationship with his older brother to for him to orchestrate a mass murder and use his brother’s ID? Was he bullied? Ostracized? Did he feel insignificant? Invisible? These are some of the questions I ask myself. Why would wake up, kill his mother, take arms & transportation…and his brother’s identification before heading to SandyHook? Why shoot your mother 4 times in the head and then shoot tiny innocent bodies multiple times with a high powered weapon? I am no psychiatrist, but something in the back of my mind tells me that this young man was more angry than ill and determined to be seen and validated and remembered by any means necessary. Perhaps he felt he deserved more than he was given from society. His mother certainly had means and was well respected. Perhaps he felt he too deserved to have some of that same acceptance and respect. Maybe he resented being pulled out of school feeling it an unforgivable embarrassment. Will we ever know? It is obvious that he never intended for us to know as it has been discovered that he purposely tried to destroy his computer hard drive. I guess he’s never seen Criminal Minds or Numbers or CSI or any number of those shows. If it’s there, somebody will find it.
I have read and watched on the news people saying over and over that gun control will not stop those who are already wired to blow. I disagree. Maybe we can’t stop it but we don’t have to provide them the ability to legally purchase weapons of mass destruction to do it with. If this young man had not had access to powerful arms, the numbers would not have been so high and the wounds not so prolific. There is no need for people to to possess ammunition and weapons more powerful than those used in the military in their own homes. It’s madness! We have witnessed over and over what putting these kinds of weapons in the hands of a madman can do. It gives a narcissist a sense of empowerment knowing that he is now able to commit tyranny. His main objectives:
You will see me.
You will remember me.
You will know my name long after I’m gone. And you will suffer for the rest of your lives for having not embraced me into your perfect worlds. Insanity? Possibly. But it reeks of a desire to empower others who cannot fight back. Empowered to go out in what they perceive a blaze of glory.
It is obvious that when a person has reached that breaking point out of desperation or frustration or any deluded sense of entitlement, he is ready and willing to die for it. It no longer matters to him what people think or feel or how much pain his actions will inflict upon the living, only that his actions guarantees that he leaves behind a legacy. The more innocent the victims, the greater would be the outrage and outcries of society. And in that vein, he knows in advance of his actions that more will be written and reported and at last everybody will be talking about the boy no one paid any or little attention before. And that sadly is his only purpose. Don’t give him that notoriety. Don’t remember his name. Don’t give make him a legend. He is a killer. He is dead. Remember the victims and those left behind. He doesn’t win, even in death.
For those reasons and I am sure many others I have failed to mention, I feel there is an urgency for this country to be on heightened alert. There are many people who find glory in violence. Who knows from where the next murderer will emerge; but on what school or heaven forbid daycare center or hospital nursery, will be the next target. Video game violence, on the big screens, on computers all across this country, is giving rise to an anti-social class of people who spend all their time alone, disassociated with other people, devoid of social skills, studying the tactics, the moves, the dynamics of winning by the process of elimination. The object of the win is the higher the kill, the stronger your game piece becomes, and the more points you earn become. Some of these games go on for days.
And so, these are my final thoughts As parents, we must be vigilante and not allow any forms of violence to consume our children’s minds and their time. It kills their creativity, dulls their compassion, and renders them sometimes as outcasts. Instead we should be teaching our children at an early age that there are real consequences to their actions, that there are positive ways to cope with stress, that they were born as a creative beings, and that they matter. If one is not creating, he is destroying. Don’t allow them to sulk in total isolation, locked away from society yet entertained by around the clock by violence in any form. If not, well…the results speak for themselves.
Let us begin the conversations in our homes, in our schools, in our churches and synagogues, anywhere and everywhere people, families, congregate for good. It’s up to us! We have the power as a people to turn this around. But as is the old saying, it takes a village.
God Bless the families of children at SandyHook Elementary School; and the community and world surrounding them. We love you and you are in or prayers.
Never forget their faces. Never forget their names.
