Reflecting on Tragedy

Following my blog last week “Learning From Our Mistakes . . . or Not,” and the grim tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, it appears, once again, that we never learn from history. As I reflect on this latest tragedy, sorting through profound emotions, I yearn to see how this incident fits into the history of such events. Perhaps following the trail of this madness will give me a foundation for understanding our society from a new, albeit, dark point of view, with the small hope that what I learn will make me a better writer.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to include a tragedy like this in my books, however, observing people’s actions and reactions to this sort of horror makes for pure character building.

I did a quick fact check on the historical angle and here’s what I learned from sources like the Washington Post.

Besides the December 14 massacre in Newtown, here are similar tragic events in history:

Dec. 11, 2012: Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, opens fire in a shopping mall in suburban Portland, Ore., shooting numerous rounds from a semiautomatic rifle, ultimately killing two people and seriously injuring another.

July 20, 2012: Twelve people are killed when a gunman enters an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, releases a canister of gas and then opens fire during opening night of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” James Holmes, a 24-year-old former graduate student at the University of Colorado, has been charged in the deaths.

Jan. 8, 2011: A gunman kills six people and wounds 13 others, including then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in a shooting spree outside a grocery store in Tucson, Ariz. Doctors say Jared Lee Loughner, who has been charged in the deaths, suffers from schizophrenia.

April 3, 2009: A 41-year-old man opened fire at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, N.Y., killing 11 immigrants and two workers. Jiverly Wong, a Vietnamese immigrant and a former student at the center, killed himself as police rushed to the scene.

March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people — including his mother, four other relatives, and the wife and child of a local sheriff’s deputy — across two rural Alabama counties. He then killed himself.

April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, kills 32 people and himself on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va.

April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.

Oct. 16, 1991: A deadly shooting rampage took place in Killeen, Texas, as George Hennard opened fire at a Luby’s Cafeteria, killing 23 people before taking his own life. 20 others were wounded in the attack.

Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who was about to be fired, shoots 14 people at a post office in Edmond, Okla. He then kills himself.

July 12, 1976: Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian in the library of California State University, Fullerton, fatally shot seven fellow employees and wounded two others.

July 18, 1984: James Oliver Huberty, an out-of-work security guard, kills 21 people in a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif. A police sharpshooter kills Huberty.

Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.

This isn’t by any means a complete list but if you look at the dates, there are six significant rampages in a 30-odd year period between 1966 and 1999 and seven (including Newtown) in a recent five-year period between 2007 and 2012. What does this mean? Are mass shootings escalating? Is it related to the downturn in the economy, job loss, home loss? Are the shooters older, younger, mentally ill? If anyone knows of a book or article that can answer these questions, please let me know.

Here’s what I did find out:

1. Shooting rampages are not rare in the U.S. Since 1982 there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country. In most cases, the killers have obtained their weapons legally. This blows my mind!

2. Eleven of the 20 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the U.S.

3. Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the U.S., five have happened from 2007 to present.

4. The South is the most violent region in the U.S.

5. Gun ownership in the U.S. is declining overall.

6. According to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, more guns mean more homicide.

7. States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence. Dig deeper: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/

8. Shootings don’t tend to substantially affect views on gun control: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/

I also took a look at the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment, The Right to Bear Arms, which says “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Do you suppose our forefathers had AR-15’s or 9mm Sig Sauers in mind in 1791? I’d be happy to give gang members muskets instead of Glocks. Might work for a drive-by shooting, but muskets wouldn’t make a good mass-killing instrument. Way to slow to load and fire. Exactly.

Does this amendment need to be interpreted with modern weaponry in mind? According to #8 above, that’s not going to happen.

I’ll leave you with another conundrum. The following link will take you to a very powerful article posted by a fellow FB writer, which argues that it’s not gun control we should tackle but mental illness. Read it and weep.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

In the end, all I can do is reflect . . . and reflect . . . and reflect.