...within hours, media and pundits and bloggers and morning coffee drinkers had already begun laying blame at the feet of everyone, but the person who pulled the trigger and why.
I am often amazed at how quickly tragedy become politics and people start taking sides. I wrote Tortured and Tormented, and other novelettes in The Damaged and Broken Collection, as first-person narratives, told in present tense, to try and offer readers a glimpse inside of the minds of people who both experience and cause tragedy. To try and provoke readers to get past simplistic causes and worse, simplistic solutions, to examine what may be going on in the mind of the perpetrators.
As foreseeable as Donald Trump's remarks were, so were those blaming him for the actions of another. The expectedness of those writing the mass murderer off with some juvenile name calling to those who jump right to blaming the tool of murder. It is all so pedantically predictable.
Violence is violence. Whether it be gun violence, fist violence, knife
violence or sporting violence. The adjective does not make it better or worse, right or wrong. We are a people who have been committing violence against one another since human beings have trampled the earth. More so, we are a society based upon violence. Our country was founded upon violent revolution. Our recreational activities often involve some type of controlled violence. The number one spectator sport in our country is an endeavor that turns the participants into cerebrally inhibited human beings. And yet, we cheer each head jolting, brain damaging hit on football’s gridiron and yet, we have the temerity to ask why people are so violent.
Violence is inherent to us. It is hard wired into our most basic survival instinct, the fight or flight response. It is that fact which must first be accepted. Next, we need to try and learn and understand what exactly triggers someone from expressing violent thoughts to committing violent behavior. Until we do, all the laws, prayers and political rhetoric will be as effective as removing a patient’s toe for prostate cancer. We can do something, but what is important, is doing something that is effective and not simply to make us feel good because we at least tried.
There are many people who are damaged. Some finally become broken. When the damaged or broken person strikes out and harms others, we must not focus solely on the how, but more importantly, we must dig deep and concentrate on the why. When we come to some understanding of that why, then maybe, just maybe, we can begin to curtail that base instinct that takes over when the damaged becomes the broken.
