Making Sense of the Senseless

[Papadaddy]

@moose: Because, I have become convinced that if God wants them to find comfort, they will. Doesn't matter what I ask Him to do or not do. Yes, my faith has been severely shaken this year. Bad things have happened in my life (as well as many others) and good, innocent people have been inexplicably and permanently harmed. God of goodness and mercy??? Really?

[Tampa Turtle]

A very sad time. I had to stop watching. My wife missed the news all day Friday and could barely choke out what happened.

 

First graders...that is Tiger Cub age.

 

Had to explain what happened to my 13 and 14 year old boys just to get ahead of it a bit before their friends started whipping things up...they seemed pretty blaise...which made me feel very sad as a parent. I don't want them to freak out but not so accepting of how screwed up the world is. Kind of a parental lose-lose.

 

Turned out later my older boy was disturbed by the sound of firecrackers Saturday and bolted fast for home while walking the dog. He thought a shooter was walking down the neighborhood. Later he told me that he always thinks what he would do if a shooter entered his school--every class every day he goes over it in his head.

 

I think God wants us to somehow move the ball on this. I don't know how--yet. The U.S. is an outlier in mass killings--we sure have a lot of them. Yes people have free will and determined folks will always find a way BUT we can make things harder.

 

Since they are almost always male it makes me remember why our job as Scouters are important. Maybe we can push a boy just enough in the right direction...

 

As for the agony of those directly affected--I can only imagine. I saw what my folks went through when my brother died--it looked like hell to me.

 

Sorry for the ramble--I am not as articulate as Eamonn and Beavah.

[packsaddle]

Moosetracker, I do wish them well. Who is it with a loving heart that could NOT empathize and wish them well? Did I not use the pronoun 'we'?

 

It didn't take Beavah long to pounce, eh? Quick on that ad hominem trigger, eh? In case anyone is concerned, I am not inclined to load up with my private arsenal and take as many of you with me as possible. Nor, I feel the need to add, have I ever harbored such thoughts, even back in the days of my Presbyterian (read: nihilistic) youth.

 

I grieve the loss of these lives, same as anyone else with a heart. I grieve others too, who have not captured the news front. ...and for whom, NONE of you have offered a single word or 'wish' for their survivors to be 'well'. That's ok, though. In this nihilistic world, the survivors are as ignorant of our 'wishes' as you are of them. And the outcome, either way, is the same: illusions for us, painful anguish for them.

 

Edit to add: Tampa Turtle, if you don't KNOW the depth of that hurt, you CAN'T imagine it. I hope you never know it. Be happy that you don't.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[scoutingagain]

"I'm not sure if any good can or will come out of this terrible tragedy?"

 

Nothing can make up for this loss. The only thing that I can come away with that is remotely positive is the litany of extrodinary things ordinary people do in these events as Beavah noted. I am in absolute awe of the thought of unarmed women rushing into a hail of bullets to protect the children in their care. This kind of heroism and sacrifice gives me pause and some hope for human kind, that there are these people out there among us, and there are more than we know.

 

SA

 

 

 

 

 

[Sentinel947]

I think Beavahs idea of God's free will is well stated and really cannot be improved.

 

I'll throw in my own two cents. See the news coverage? See how it glorifies the shooter? How his picture is thrown around, yet rarely the victims pictures are shown? See how his name is repeated, yet I bet you cannot name the Principal's name. Our media encourages copycat attacks. This must stop. These shooters must not be glorified. We must remember what they did, why they did it. But lets glorify the victims. Instead of "Adam Lanza shot 26 people." It should be "A mentally unstable young man shot 26 people." Quit glorifying the killer.....

 

As for God, lets not remember that God didn't pull that trigger, a young man, a struggling young man, one who could easily have been one of our Scouts or children pulled that trigger. He was one year older than I am. If I had found out that a close friend of mine had just slaughtered 26 people, I'd blame myself. Considering I just convinced my friend with depression to seek medical help, I'm even more shaken by this event.

 

There is much darkness in the world. We cannot accept it as inevitable, we must fight back by creating light.

 

Yours in sorrow,

Sentinel947

[Tampa Turtle]

Packsaddle,

 

I did lose a child once (as an infant) but I think it is not quite the same thing as it was natural causes. Was a loss of what was not to be.

 

I have had my share of personal tragedies--I can imagine the sense of loss but not under the circumstance of murder like that. And yes I hope I never, never have to. I agree with you that these families will have to walk through hell and some of them may never make it out. I do think, obviously, that so many of the survivor children, staff, and parents will be scarred. I fully expect folks to be mad as hell at God; I know I have been.

 

But it is human nature to "go back to normal". Many of us seen that when someone close to us dies and the world keeps turning.

 

I agree with Beavah about the double edged sword of free will. And I think that some folks do evil calmly and deliberately without mental illness as a factor.

[OldGreyEagle]

First, Observation on the Media, how could so much wrong things be reported and no one be called on it? There were two shooters, the shooter was a students father, the shooter shot his mother who taught Kindergarten. Only pistols were used, only a rifle was used etc etc etc. How about, we have an unfolding story, we will give what happened when we know for sure...

 

Or is that too much to ask?

 

Also, The hypocrisy abounds. Read carefully what I am going to say, as I am sure I will be misunderstood

 

Does anyone know how many people died over the weekend in drunk driving accidents? More than 26? Less than 26? How many above 8 years old, how many under? Does it matter?

 

We want to launch a nation wide effort to stop the myriad of shootings and we allow the drunk driver slaughter to continue. Why? Because there is not a single point of focus? Because the dead are strewn all over the country? We keep telling ourselves we value human life, yet there is a Cottage Industry in Law sheltering Drunk Drivers.

 

President Obama is tired of the headlines of deadly shootings, I tire of drunk driver deaths. Why is one form of death more acceptable that others? And yes, death by drunk driver must be acceptable because we as a society tolerate it so well

 

[moosetracker]

Sentinel - when they read the victims names there are pictures of some, an no pictures of other, one had a small video of her singing with her brother. I am not sure why, but my take on it was that some families want to grieve privately and have chosen not to give the media a picture to try to keep it private. If that is the case, then thankfully the media may be listening to them, as I am sure a very ambitious reporter could scrounge up a picture from someone in the community who has done some sort of school or after school activity with them.

 

But with each child, there is a small item of the childs personality or what they enjoyed. Alot of the teachers and principle was describe as heros, the principle and school conselor both ran into the gunfire and tried to wrestle the shooter to disarm him, they both lost their lives. One teacher was sheilding the children and lost her life. Another hid the children in a coat room, but she stayed outside and she was killed but the children saved.. I am not good at remembering the names, but the small acts of heroism I can remember and retell.

 

packsaddle I grieve others too, who have not captured the news front. You are right, murders of one person may not make the local news, definatly don't make national news unless there is some big issue like Travon Martin, and his took a month or more before it caught national attention.. This weekend, there were two other people who opened fire in public places, they also killed several people and they might have gotten a little more attention if it was not during the time of this schools violence. One was in a Mall in Portland Oregon killed 2. Another was at a hospital 3 were wounded, but no one but the shooter was killed.

 

OGE we do have tough drunk driver laws. Anything could be tougher, but I think they are tough. Sure it doesn't totally prevent it, but I do believe it would be worse if we just shrugged our shoulders and did nothing as we did in the 50's and 60's. More bars know to cut people off, more people know to have a designated driver. More people know to have guest from a party stay the night rather then have them drive home..

 

Putting in Gun laws to limit automatic weapons and tighten background checks, along with other legislature to try to curb societies thoughts on the subject through movies, video games, changes to mental illness etc.. Will also not curb all the violence. But if it cuts it in half, that is better then doing nothing.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[WasE61]

I notice now that the primary weapon was Bushmaster .223 (AR 15) assault rifle. Definitely not your typical bolt-action job.

 

When will we learn ...

[OldGreyEagle]

So death by Drunk Driver is Acceptable because we have "tough laws" against it?

 

If you cause a death while driving impaired, you should never be able to drive again, nationwide

 

If you cause a second death while driving impaired, you permanently lose your liberty, forever

 

[packsaddle]

OGE, I'd say that a first offense causing a death while driving under the influence should be treated as a homicide, manslaughter at the very least. There should never be a second offense. EVER

[scoutingagain]

OGE,

 

Why the media outrage over events in Newtown, CT vrs drunk driving? From the CDC:

 

Of the 1,210 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2010, 211 (17%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver.

Of the 211 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2010, over half (131) were riding in the vehicle with the alcohol-impaired driver.1

 

 

Just providing perspective.

 

SA

 

 

[suzisk8]

Found out on Sunday that two of the boys were Tiger Scouts and just found out that eight of the girls were Daisy Scouts. I honestly do not know what the answer is and why this happened. Still numb.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

The most frequent perpetrator in the murder of children, is not a stranger with a gun. It's a parent or step-parent. And strangulation and beating are common means. But it's not the availability of the means that is the problem. It's the motive, and/or the mental health of the parent who commits the crime.

 

Don't blame guns and don't advocate making public policy based on emotional reactions to vanishingly infrequent statistical anomalies. Don' let collectivists manipulate your emotions and your natural impetus to want to "do something" cause you to support policies that will be ineffective at stopping the evil you wish to stop, but very effective at weakening restrictions on the government's power to violate citizens' rights.

 

http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/0226493660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355789622&sr=8-1&keywords=more+guns+less+crime

 

[Beavah]

OGE, I'd say that a first offense causing a death while driving under the influence should be treated as a homicide, manslaughter at the very least. There should never be a second offense. EVER

 

Yah, that always sounds so nice, until yeh actually come face to face with da real live humans and circumstances, eh?

 

The family man who was drivin' home from da retirement party for a colleague. He's a smaller fellow, so in drinkin' along with his colleagues he blows a bigger blood alcohol content. On his way home, a teenager wearin' a dark hoody on a skateboard cuts across da road.

 

Now what? He's at a BAC that used to be legal but no longer is. He's a hard worker, good dad, and if yeh treat this as a homicide yeh impoverish his family. Most jury members can remember havin' done somethin' similar in terms of choices, without that consequence. Was da death because of da teenager's choices or because da driver's reaction time was slowed?

 

Anger is natural, but hopefully it's tempered by wisdom and compassion. Zero-tolerance, mandatory sentencing stuff does more harm than good.

 

Beavah