7-20-12: Where Are We Going Wrong?

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to follow up on my post of this weekend regarding the shootings last Friday at the movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. Presumed suspect James Holmes appeared in court for the first time this morning, his hair dyed orange, looking and behaving completely out of touch with the world around him. As more comes out in the press about Mr. Holmes's background, the more disturbing this case becomes. What upsets me most is the fact that over the period of sixty days he was able to amass an arsenal that, according to today's New York Times,  included 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle, and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun...all purchased legally over the Internet. This shouldn't surprise me, but it does.

What is even more alarming to me, however, is the continued arrogance of gun lobbyists who continue to spout off in the press to the effect that if Mr. Holmes hadn't been able to acquire the hardware needed to pull of Friday morning's attack, he could just as easily have built a bomb (or several bombs) that would have caused even greater loss of life. As it is, he'd rigged his apartment with tripwires and enough incendiary bombs to blow his apartment building to hell and back. Luckily, the Aurora police were skillful enough to remove the bombs without incident and explode them in an unidentified and remote location away from any population centers.

I'm sure over the weeks and months ahead we'll hear more than we will ever want to know about James Holmes. The question on everyone's minds right now is what could possibly have led a by all accounts intelligent and seemingly mild-mannered young man to plan and carry out such an act of horrific devastation. Clearly, something went wrong somewhere on his life's journey from a quiet, upscale neighborhood outside of San Diego to the Denver suburb of Aurora. What does this say about our nation's ability to detect and treat severe mental illness? How many young men like Mr. Holmes are out there in need of help but perhaps are unsure of where to get that help or are perhaps even unaware that help is needed? Who do we blame for this? Our healthcare system? Our media? Hollywood? The Second Amendment? All of the above? I don't have the answers but I would sure like someone to help me understand.

The tragic irony of all this (or perhaps not irony per se but sheer coincidence) is that the Aurora tragedy takes place just as Norway is commemorating the one-year anniversary of another horrific gun-related tragedy--Anders Behring Breivik's rampage in and around Oslo last summer that killed 77 people. In the past six years alone, it seems the world has experienced one mass shooting after another: the Toronto shopping mall shooting last month; the 2011 Tucson, AZ shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people; Fort Bragg; Virginia Tech; the list goes on. And this doesn't even begin to take into consideration the murder and mayhem experienced on a daily basis by innocent civilians caught in the crossfire in the world's all-too-many war zones. What have we learned from any of this? Sadly, apparently nothing.

I realize as I'm writing this that I am probably preaching to the choir and that if I can't propose answers then there is probably no point in posing questions. I'm just afraid that as a nation and as a world, we are quickly becoming desensitized, and as the memory of 7-20 slowly fades into memory and we fixate on our own individual lives, it will take another tragedy on the scale of what we just witnessed in Aurora, Colorado to shock and remind us all over again how fragile life is, how we take it for granted, and how preventable so much of this tragedy really is.

Ciao.