It feels as though there have been a lot of public shootings lately. How scary is it that on July 20th, a bunch of people went to a theater to watch a movie, and then their evening turned into a traumatic event. I cannot imagine all the emotions at all, and I feel so deeply for those involved and the families of those lost. It’s an unimaginable pain.
I watched the tragedy at Northern Illinois University unfold live on CNN. NIU was my alma mater – it’s where I got my MA degree. It was horrifying to watch this happen to a school I went to. Over the course of hours, I finally managed to make contact with those I knew who were still there. Almost a year before, I watched the horrors unfold at Virginia Tech. These sorts of events chill me to the core.
What scares me is the lack of safety in ordinary environments. You walk into the theater sit down, and BAM! You sit down in class and BAM! The sad thing with events like these is a lot of them could be prevented – by embracing an adequate mental health care system. We need to take care of those individuals who have a propensity for violence. We need to make sure they can afford their medication. We need to make sure that we report our concerns to the appropriate authorities when those concerns arise. It doesn’t matter what faith the individual is, what political party the individual aligns with, whether the person is rich or poor. It doesn’t matter what race the person is. What does matter is that there are many people who need help, and for one reason or another are not seeking it out. Part of this may lie with the stigma associated with mental illnesses. Part of this might lie in financial or cultural reasoning – the fact is, we need to take care of our citizens, all of our citizens, to make sure that there aren’t people out there who commit acts of terror against us as we go about our daily living.
What do you think we should do about all the shootings? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
