Our television broke about a month ago.
We ordered a part to try to fix it, but that didn't work, so we waited until we had some extra money to get a new one. That was yesterday.
As anyone who lives in the U.S. knows, and probably beyond the U.S., we had another mass shooting this week. I was glad to not have a television that day. In the past I've chosen not to turn on the TV when there has been such a tragedy. I find I can do much better with the information if I'm reading it, and I choose to retell it to my child with age appropriate information, instead of having him experience the trauma of a TV report that I can't filter.
I have a Bachelor's Degree in psychology, which really just gives you the opportunity to study a few things and then apply for graduate school. I didn't. I moved on to a different career, but I've always been interested in human behavior, and I'm a natural observer. I also always want information, and want to know why, and how to fix things.
I have my own theories on why these shootings are happening. I don't know if they align with anyone else's theories, because the only ones I see are those of people fighting over gun rights and gun laws.
I can say that I didn't want to hear the guy's name, and I knew that I could probably write my own report without even doing research or talking to any witnesses. (I've been a newspaper reporter.) It was going to be the same story I had heard before, same type of person, a loner, an extremist of some kind. It wasn't going to actually make sense, even if we found out the motivation for it.
Here's what I think:
The people who want to kill others were children not that long ago. Somewhere along the way, something went wrong. They were either always marginalized, seen as odd, treated as odd, pushed to the outside of the group, not accepted at school, made fun of, bullied, or something similar-OR
There could also have been a trauma that left them feeling empty inside, and their way of thinking became illogical. Their reasoning became flawed.
It's not an excuse, but let's get real. We all want to know that we aren't alone. We want to be part of something, part of a family at the very least, a community, to be validated, seen as a valuable contributor.
I do believe we need more access to mental health, and we need to stop making people feel badly about needing counseling or psychiatric help.
But what I believe is the root of the problem is our society. It's the way our culture has evolved.
In short, we focus on things that don't really matter. We work harder for stuff. Some of us don't even make enough money to have stuff, but are so consumed with the idea that if we have stuff we somehow are better or more important, that we forget that there are real life people all around us.
We have stopped having real relationships. Our kids are raising themselves. We don't have enough conversations. We don't spend enough time together, just being together.
When we spend time together, and really listen to each other, we are better equipped to recognize when someone needs help. We can see the moment something starts to change in them.
I don't know if this would work. I, luckily, have never had to test it out. But what if we intervened. What if we recognized that someone was thinking illogically? What if instead of judgment, we offered them a chance to get help with that? What if we could see that their way of looking at the world was skewed in a dangerous way, and getting them to a psychiatrist could be as easy as going to the Urgent Care?
I recently read an article, the first I've read about the shooting that happened three days ago, that gave information about the sheriff who declined to name the shooter, and then the reasons why criminologists and ethicists need information about the shooters to help prevent future acts of violence.
I guess we only hear about the ones that aren't prevented, but I'd really like to see a story about what they ARE doing to prevent these horrific tragedies. I've been waiting since 1999.
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