What I really saw last Friday

I didn't react very well to the shooting last Friday, like most people.  Initially, I was overwhelmed both by the idea that there are a lot of disturbed, angry men in our society with little perceived space to process their shit in a healthy manner, access to a wide variety of easily available guns, and nothing to stop them, really, from shooting up a mall or a school or a park or whatever.  And when they inevitably do, we're faced with a chorus of gun-stroking fetishists, who insist that the best way to deal with this kind of tragedy, is to abandon the idea of a civil, civic society, and instead arm each individual and to train them to view every social encounter as a potential shooting situation.  I don't like that idea.  I find the lack of faith in the idea of a civil society disturbing.  It's depressing that the gun strokers and an army of lawyers have locked down the debate to such a degree that it's considered out of form to even contemplate any sort of reasonable gun restriction.  The fact that "sell more guns to everyone" is an extremely convenient position coming from the lobbyists of gun sellers and gun lovers seems to float right on by the outside of the debate.

But that's not what I really want to talk about today.  Yes, we saw one disturbed maniac take the lives of innocent kids Friday.  We also saw two women charge a man holding an assault rifle, because of their love for their kids, their professionalism, their sense of duty and a willingness to sacrifice anything for the kids in their care.  We saw a woman hide her class in closets and lie convincingly to a maniac with a gun in her face to protect her children before being shot herself.  We saw teachers hiding with their children in closets and bathrooms, telling them they loved them, that it was going to be okay just in case those were the last words they ever heard.  Even trying to keep them distracted and protected from even the psychological damage of the situation though they were terrified themselves.  We saw an entire community rushing to the scene to help and protect their loved ones, even if they didn't know how, even though it made the scene chaotic.  There was one maniac at that school Friday.  And he was outnumbered, by a wide margin, by a community that ran towards danger, that chose bravery, self-sacrifice and love over their own selves.   That's who we are.  Not one angry, bloodthirsty maniac.  Not gun-toting psychos.  When you feel like despairing, in bemoaning what the world is coming to, remember the people who gave everything, and the rest of the community that would have done the same, not the one bastard who couldn't manage his shit.

Yes, we saw the worst in human nature in one man last Friday.  We also saw the best in human nature, in far greater measure, from everyone else around him.  I think that's what we should remember.  Mourn those poor kids.  Debate sensible gun legislation and security at schools.  But don't let one paranoid gun nut turn us from people who choose, love, kindness, compassion, self-sacrifice and community into paranoid gun nuts who have such a dim view of human nature that we view every social interaction as a potential massacre and bring a gun to every argument.  We get to decide what kind of society we want to fight for.  Let's make it the one embodied by those six women, not the one embodied by that poor, paranoid coward.