How is it feasibly possible for school shootings to exist in and only in the United States to the degree of frequency that they do? I'm not going to tell you that it's because were living in a world akin to George Orwell's "1984," because in the world of "1984," you wouldn't be able to read or be familiar with a book like "1984." We may not be living in 1984, but that doesn't mean there is not a widespread climate of fear. The most recent Oct. 1 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon has reportedly involved the perpetrator Chris Harper Mercer, 26, asking students whether or not they were Christians, if they responded in the affirmative they were fatally shot, whereas if they responded otherwise they were shot in the leg or something of a similarly non-fatal nature.
Massacres to this level of frequency exhibit symptoms of greater societal issues, which have gone unaddressed, yet we still find ourselves asking, "Where is the outrage?" President Obama expressed his concerns yesterday by saying that for the American people, such things have become matters of "routine." The President went on to say that he cannot enact change alone, urging the American people toward taking legitimate political action, and went on to say that "our thoughts and prayers are not enough," and that "we've become numb to this."
What can be said of a society so dastardly in denial of the existence of wildly inhumane conditions in the way we approach the mentally ill? Where is the outrage when time and time again preventable situations arise which in turn cost innocent people their lives? While I can't claim that every mass murdering gunman is just a lost soul whose condition could have been ameliorated if someone had only reached out to them before the incident, many upon further inspection exhibit telltale signs of deteriorating mental health and often strong degrees of social isolation. In the "Greatest Country in the World," why is there not a growing focus on mental health issues when these atrocities occur over and over? Obviously, there's a limited amount that we as individuals can do to counteract these symptoms of deep-seated societal issues, but there are always measures we can take to prevent the next massacre from taking place.
After the 1999 Jefferson County, Colorado Columbine High School shootings, rumors had circulated that the perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had asked students and teachers about their religious affiliations, and responding more aggressively if they were Christians. Reports of a similar nature have begun circulating regarding the Oregon shootings. According to NBC News, one 19-year-old Autumn Vicari has reported that her brother, who was present for the recent Oregon shootings, said that the perpetrator Mercer, had asked "students to stand if they were Christians." Vicari went on to say her brother had reportedly told her that if they had answered in the affirmative, "they were shot in the head," and if not "they shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg." Several other students have reported similar events, anonymously or not. As a practicing Christian, I cannot even begin to describe what it means to hear such things, or how deeply it calls to me for agency. Acts like these are not random, and cannot be mitigated by words alone, if we as a people do not operate under a greater sense of urgency, I fear that these matters will only increase in magnitude and frequency.
When the only thing the mainstream media will report on is Donald Trump's lunacy or what Kim Kardashian named her new pet, it only furthers the sentiment that we really have absolutely no idea what's really happening. People's lives are at stake, every single hour of every single day; situations like these are ugly and make us uncomfortable. We all may be up in arms about it today, and tomorrow, but two weeks from now I fear that once more we will have inattentively forgotten the matter all too easily. With all the incredible advances in scientific knowledge within the last few decades, we have been seemingly struggling to socially and culturally catch up. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "We must become the change we wish to see." Let us do exactly that, that no more parents should have to needlessly bury their sons and daughters, and so that this country might actually live up to its fanciful slogans. The issue is not as much that we must take responsibility for our individual actions, but that we must take responsibility for our collective inaction.
