Since Sunday I've been reading the commentaries and watching the CNN transmissions on internet and what seems to be missing in all of this is the sense of what the fathers of the american nation used to call "The Commonweal". In fact, Common Good, Community, the People - are phrases that are all missing in the reports on this tragic event.
This afternoon I saw an interview with a neighbor of the shooter's family that is today published in a Tucson newspaper. The neighbor says that the parents have not come out of the house since they learned of the massacre. This particular neighbor is the only one that Loughners deal with: he goes in and out, brings in their mail and newspapers, delivers messages to the media. He is quoted as saying about the couple that "He is a mess and she's worse."
At one point he says that the Loughners cannot imagine why their son would shoot anyone. The two of them are weeping, sobbing, living in shame, and that this is so wrong because, the neighbor says, this couple is not responsible for what happened. "They just happen to be the parents of the individual who did this; it is not their fault."
When I read that phrase, it all came home to me.
How do you just "happen to be the parents" of anyone?
They are locked in the house now for 4 days. Why haven't they gone over to the jail to see their son? Why have they not gone to speak with the lawyer? Why do they have no one in the community, in the city, in their extended family with whom they can speak?
Some of the pundits are saying "this is not a political act; it is the act of a crazed individual".
Really? Cannot crazed individuals do political acts? If he is so cut off from the world of politics, why did he target the Congresswoman? Why did he shoot others who were part of the town meeting? How can it be said that this is not political?
It is very political. And he is not simply a crazed individual - sounds to me that he comes from a crazed household who kept him from mixing with others as a child - a family that would shun their neighbors for years … Now we have the results. I won't even talk about how easy it was to buy a gun (a Glock 19 with a high capacity clip of 33 bullets and a rapid-fire capacity designed not for hunting deer but for killing people).
It is interesting that no one is talking about gun-control. All the chatter is on a "crazed youth". Even the photos of him in the media show a "crazed youth". Its not the gun's fault. Its not the political vitriol's fault… what can you do when there is a "crazed youth" in the mix?
Yeah… okay. But now I have a question.
How many other crazed youth are out there, ready to do the same thing if they have a chance? My ardent hope from all of this is that we will not look for the easy answer but will ask the hard questions and somehow uncover how, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we can have a Ina & Oracle, a Columbine, a McDonalds at San Ysiro, and Oklahoma Federal Building, a Waco. This one hit a judge and a congresswoman, but the others were just as political. Unless the hard questions are asked and answered, we will just be waiting for the next massacre.
(Photo of Gabrielle Giffords in Congress on Monday, 3 January 2011).
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