Every time a person goes into a public place in America they are running the chance of being a victim of a mass shooting.
Are they just in the wrong place at the wrong time when a crazed man with an assault rifle shows up and opens fire? How can they be at the wrong place at the wrong time when they did nothing wrong? They were in their classroom, at the mall, supermarket, night club, church or synagogue.
It’s the gunman who is at the wrong place. But in the United States, and especially in Texas, the gunman has been given the right-of-way. Everyone else is secondary under the overly exalted and grossly misinterpreted Second Amendment.
This is why mass shootings have become a common occurrence in the United States.
The names of places have become the names of tragedies like Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, Aurora, Charleston, Boulder, Buffalo and now Allen, Texas.
It’s become routine and virtually everyone knows the rundown of events. There is a breaking news alert. And America holds its collective breath and waits to find out “Is he one of theirs or one of ours?” Which tribe did the gunman follow? Was he a Neo-Nazi hoping to trigger a race war? Was he a foreign terrorist who was looking to sow chaos against American imperialism?
This taxonomy shouldn’t matter, but it does—especially as the post mass shooting moves into the instant analysis and wall-to-wall news coverage phase.
There will be b-roll footage of first responders, cell phone video of people running for their lives, sound bites of people who were almost killed and press conferences of politicians offering “thoughts and prayers” along with praising the heroes who put down the gunman to help stem the death toll that might have been much worse.
Everyone in America now knows that when someone is going out into public, they could be next. Anyone at any time is a possible target for a well-armed person who is in a bad mood and having a psychological crisis.
Then the politicians begin their bickering over whether to blame the massacre on the easy access of guns, lack of funding for mental illness, or the removal of God from our classrooms.
This is why we feel hopeless. In America mass shootings are unavoidable. And we have to learn to deal with it.
But what is the toll of carrying that additional stress that you could be killed going to the store as if you were living in a war zone? Is this something that people can easily filter out of their thoughts as if they were living in the shadow of a smoldering volcano that could erupt at any time?
Is this a standard that a civilized society should accept? Our government loves guns more than school children, is the obvious conclusion. And the majority of voters in America are in agreement.
Guests:
Suzanne Degges-White PhD, LCPC, LPC, LMHC, NCC, is professor and chair of the Counseling and Higher Education department at Northern Illinois University. She is a licensed counselor whose focus includes working with individuals and families facing transitions. Her academic research explores development over the lifespan with a strong focus on women’s relationships and women’s developmental transitions.
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*This interview will be recorded on Monday, May 15.
