School shootings are destroying the human spirit.
I'm in Local Burger, a restaurant in Northampton, Massachusetts. A friend and I are looking at burger options, perusing the menu for a side and I get a text. A group-chat message to my a cappella group saying, "Everyone please stay away from UMASS Amherst. There's been a spotting of armed gunmen, and the campus is on lockdown. Stay safe!" The message is kind, caring and sweet. It is everything a shooting is not.
On Feb. 18, 2016, I received official messages from Smith College reporting two armed gunmen on The University of Amherst Massachusetts's campus around 6:30 P.M. The first thing I thought about was my mother. I wondered what my mother would do if I were hurt. I hated the images of her face and panic that popped into my head. Just imagining it was unbearable; I couldn't fathom how it would be for mothers or caregivers of students who were actually on UMASS's campus.
I recieved two texts, one email and one phone call from my college. All of them said the same thing: "ATTN all Faculty, Staff and Student. Please stay away from UMASS Campus. Report of 2 armed gunmen. Will update when more information is available." Despite the severity of the situation, I couldn't help thinking about how un-personal it all was. They didn't even have time to put an "s" on the end of "Student." When a situation becomes dire, something good about the world disappears. It takes away emotion, thoughtfulness and time.
Now, I wasn't near UMASS's campus. I was safe, tucked away inside a little burger shop with some of my closest friends. And to me, that just didn't feel right. Shootings have become somewhat of a norm for college students. We hear about them, grieve about them in passing but never think that it will happen to us. One of the members of my a cappella group was on the threatened campus. There were thousands of people on that campus approximately 8.2 miles away from me. All of them in fear. All of them probably feeling more alone than ever before. Life isn't supposed to be like that.
I believe that humanity is connected, at least through the fact that we are all human. Of course, there are things that make us different, such as background, culture and so on. But there's something tangible about being human; something comforting in knowing that there are billions of other people alive and living. When I first heard of the presence of Gunmen, I became disoriented. There were two armed and hostile men, one of my friends and thousands of others on that campus. They were all in danger, and all I could do was sit with the knowledge. They were helpless to save themselves.The gunmen put all of those peoples' lives in jeopardy and disrupted the interconnectedness we all share. It cut me off from that integral part of my humanity. But even more so, it cut off those directly affected from their humanity. Their presence sanctioned off an entire community of people from the rest of the world. They became captives in their own spaces, unable to do anything or be anything but captives as they waited for their fate to play out.
I think one of the worst things about shootings might be that helplessness. Even if you are trained in martial arts, boxing or sword fighting, none of that matters in the face of a bullet. Someone has a gun and it feels like all the power in the universe transfers out of our own bodies and into the hands of the shooter. A little part of me froze in time just reading the messages from my college. They sucked the air gets right out of my lungs and I became powerless. I was a captive of my own mind until I learned that the lock-down had been lifted.
According to The Boston Globe, the attack was reported to be targeted at a specific victim and the two gunmen had fled the scene. Thanks be to some higher power that nothing more serious happened on that day. But it could have happened and that's the scary part. This is a real epidemic that America has doused itself in. As we head towards a new election and a new presidency in 2016, school shootings should be high on the list of things that need to be considered when choosing a candidate. Whoever that might be for you, let's pray that they have an ambition and a drive to address this issue and work towards a world where no one will have to fear for their lives in a school setting. The spirit of humanity depends on it.
