Vicious Cycle: How Long Till Next Time?
This piece dates back to January, 2011. I drew it in response to the Tucson shooting
in which six people were killed, and former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded.
In the original post, I explained that it represents an all-too-familiar cycle in the United States: a mass shooting; blood; death; outrage; calls for change; a gradual loss of interest as the media moves on; a return to complacency until the next horrific shooting– and the cycle repeats itself.
I decided to post it again in the wake of the recent Aurora shooting.
I have no wish to exploit the Aurora tragedy. It sickens me just like it sickens anyone with a semblance of human feeling. But we have to acknowledge this terrible cycle if we ever hope to break it.
I know it’s not exclusively an American phenomenon, but we seem to give the world most of these shootings. True, America is awash in guns, and true, there would be no shootings without guns. But I think there’s much more at work here.
American culture is filled with casual violence and brutality: movies, television shows, video games, songs and music videos filled with obscenities and hateful lyrics; “comedy” that relies on obscene language and attacking those we disagree with; abortion defended even to the brink of infanticide; young kids driven to suicide by bullying; cursing as part
of the “new normal”; hateful comments on blogs and forums; vicious political attack ads– the list goes on and on.
All defended in the name of “freedom,” of course, and all doing violence to the human spirit.
How long till the next shooting?
We have to break the cycle.
We have to do it by personally rejecting the many forms of violence that surround us.
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What do you think? Were you surprised to hear about the latest shooting? Are we really free if we choose behaviors that enslave us to violence? Hope you’ll leave a comment.
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