Scary Stuff

When I was younger, I loved a good horror movie. Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and some of their sequels were great fun and I spent many Friday nights in a dark theater getting spooked and laughing at the idiots on screen who always seemed to go into dark rooms on rainy nights or investigated strange noises all alone. If and when they finally overpowered the crazed killer in the film, they always stopped just short of finishing them off, leaving one last good jump scare when the psycho rose up once again to chase and taunt them (and the audience) further. There was always room left for a sequel, and we left the theater happy and relieved to be going back to the safe haven of our lives.

I quit going to horror movies a while back. The movies had changed, turning nastier and becoming less of an escape than a brutal attack on the senses. The new movies even gained a new name. They weren’t just “horror movies” or “slasher films” anymore. Films like Saw and Hostel (and their sequels) have been successful with audiences, and have ushered in a new genre of horror accurately titled “torture porn.” The threat of death (which provided the suspense in older horror films) has been replaced with a series of intricately designed death traps and sadistic human on human sustained torture.

Of course, our culture loves violence in entertainment. Grand Theft Auto is an extremely popular series of video games which puts the player in the role of a criminal. You gain points by shooting or running people down with your car. Doom and many other games put you in charge of a variety of guns as you shoot your way through buildings, caves, streets, or anywhere there might be a worthy target.

As kids we had cap guns and plastic army weaponry. I still have a plastic gun that’s a replica of James Bond “Walther PPK.” I played war with friends and Cowboys and Indians with my cousins. We aimed toy guns at people we loved and pulled triggers. It was almost as fun to be the one who got shot and die spectacularly. We weren’t going to win Oscars, but there was satisfaction to be had in a good fall from a tree or a drop and roll while running. Today, there are more elaborate versions of those old back yard games. Laser Tag and Paintball businesses thrive today with both young and young at heart gleefully hunting and shooting their friends, family and even strangers. Like everything we do, it’s been taken up several notches to appease our desire for more.

If you are wondering where I am going with all of this, I have to say, “I don’t know.” I do know what got me thinking about these things, but it all depends on your perspective as to whether you think I’m on a ramble or a true, focused rant.

If you’ve turned on the news in the last few days, you’ve heard about three individual shooting incidents.

Fourteen dead in Binghamton, New York.
Three police officers shot dead in Pittsburgh.
Five children shot by their father in Graham, Washington.

These are not the first shooting incidents of this relatively young year, and unfortunately, I doubt they will be the last.

We’re approaching the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings. I remember staring numbly at the television screen on April 20, 1999 and watching as young people crawled out windows and ran from exits, desperate to escape the horror inside. It was not the first time a mass murder had taken place on American soil, but there was something about the photos, shown repeatedly after the tragedy, of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold…their faces like almost any other in any high school yearbook…that still haunt me to this day.

Since Columbine, there have been multiple incidents. So many that it seems that we aren’t even shocked anymore. Two have hit close to home for me, and particularly affecting two co-workers and friends. I was on travel with a woman whose husband was teaching at Campbell County High School on November 8, 2005 when word came through that there had been a shooting. The terror for her was real, and although we quickly learned that he was safe, the fact that he was only one room away when the shootings took place can give a person many sleepless nights wondering “what if?”

July 27, 2008 a gunman opened fire at the Tennessee Valley Universalist Church in Knoxville. Another co-worker and her family arrived a little late that morning, one of those frantic, “hurry up and get ready” Sunday mornings that many of us have had (and for some of us, it’s a weekly occurence). Being late might have saved their lives. Their teenage daughter was dropped at the door and came in behind the shooter as he was firing into the congregation. She is still dealing with what she saw and questions what she could have done, if anything, to have stopped him.

There have been hours and hours of debate and discussion, trying to establish a root cause for this random, cold blooded violence. Blame gets dumped on multiple causes: Parents, Television, Movies, Video Games, Guns, etc. It seems that the only thing that hasn’t been brought up as a potential cause is Global Warming, but I expect someone to start research on that soon.

What is the answer? How do we keep our children safe? How do we keep ourselves safe? Should we ban all guns? (That’s neither practical, nor in any way likely to happen). Censor Television, Movies and Video games; removing all violent content? (again, not likely to happen). Maybe we should imprison anyone who shows any kind of anti-social behavior (Just let me say goodbye to my family before you lock me up). There are no good answers.

Sadly, “no good answers” has led us down the destructive path of not doing anything at all. Sure, banning guns would mean that “only criminals will have guns,” but is it too much to ask why we are still manufacturing automatic and semi-automatic weapons? How many rounds do you need to fire in a minute to shoot a deer or to protect yourself from a home intruder? Don’t use the old “right to bear arms” debate when my children’s lives might be at stake. I absolutely agree with the argument that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The problem is that people kill other people “with guns.” We have made laws which restrict the manufacture and sale of drugs (which in general only harm the person who takes them), yet we refuse to set permanent limits on the manufacture and distribution of automatic weapons (which are designed for one particular use: to kill and kill as quickly as possible).

I believe the Founding Fathers gave us a set of guidelines, but hoped that we would have sense enough not to abuse the privileges for selfish purposes or profit. Our personal rights and liberties should only go so far as they do not infringe upon the safety and liberties of others.

We’re a selfish society. We want to do what we want to do. We might get upset about the gun violence we see on the news, but how much will we personally sacrifice to try to slow it down or stop it? Will we give up violent movies? Video games that reward violence? Automatic weapons? Will we submit to metal detectors in all public buildings? Will we push for more research on the psychology of these killers so we can detect behavior indicators? How far are we willing to go?

Our answers are always the same:
“Why should I be punished for other people’s bad behavior?”
“I’m responsible with my guns.”
“I can watch a violent movie and not want to kill anyone! It’s just a movie!”
“I love to play video games and I can separate that from reality. I don’t kill people!”

I can’t argue with any of these answers. The truth is that it isn’t fair. You really shouldn’t have to do without any of these things. In a perfect world, we’d all be safe...all the time. My girls could go to school every day and I wouldn’t worry about who they might meet in the hall between classes. We could go to church and never have to wonder if someone agrees with our religion or viewpoint. We could drive down the street and never get caught in the crossfire of drugs or gang violence.

I can't even make a halfway decent argument that any significant changes in these areas will guarantee a difference. My cynical side keeps whispering in my ear that "crazy will find a way," meaning that even if we get rid of all violent images, abolish guns and make sure every child is well fed, hugged and loved through all its formative years, there's no way to stop some psychopath from finding a way to kill.

In my other ear, however, is another voice. That voice whispers, "so what? What if you can stop just one? What if you could only save one life?" And that's the real question: What are we willing to sacrifice if we could save just one life? The kicker is that you will never know if you did or not. You'll never know if your action, your sacrifice, made a difference. No parade, no medals, no picture in the paper. You're like that person at a party who is pretty sure they can drive home after a few drinks, but calls a cab anyway. Was it a waste of money, or did you prevent a tragic accident? We don't get second chances to find out, but it's always better to put others safety ahead of your own desires.

Like I said, it's not fair, but it’s really not a question of “fair.” It’s not about “freedom” and “liberty” or “conservative” vs. “liberal.” It should be a question of "where do we start?" and “what are we…as individuals…willing to do?” Like any problem, we shouldn’t look at it in our lazy, “there’s nothing I can do about it anyway,” type of response. We can do things. We can let our representatives hear our voices. We can demand stronger laws. We need to take a stand and throw every potential solution at the wall and see what sticks. Anything we do is better than not doing anything at all. The excuses we make are costing lives.