Thanks to not having a television, the first I heard of the mall shooting in Omaha yesterday was through an email from another blogger I opened this morning.
Dana, you’re ok down in there in Nebraska I hope?
It was an odd subject line and not how his emails usually begin. Nine dead in a shopping mall starts making you think about the people you know who live in or near Omaha, however. I chat with Angela now and again. It was nice to get an email from her this morning. Kaltholier lives there, too. Joe blogs from Omaha…and the second amendment is his main topic. I was glad to see he had posted.
I read somewhere once that referring to other bloggers by first name only is supposed to come across as “cliquish” and that I should avoid it. However, I didn’t care all that much about their blogs this morning nor what they wrote about. I could guess that much. I only cared that they had written something. That they hadn’t been shopping. To make sure these people I have never met in person were ok. Yesterday evening, thousands of people called friends and relatives for the same reason. “Just checking.” Apparently more than Alltell could handle.
And now to figure out what to make of it all.
I cannot help but think back to the Virginia Tech shootings. I was in the hospital, giving birth to my fourth child. I was also inundated with images, commentary, repetitive reporting. Different people saying the same things, but with the same questions left unanswered. Virginia is a long ways from Lincoln, Nebraska. But the shootings felt close. Television makes the world seem smaller.
The Westroads Mall is only 70 miles away. I’ve been there, although not often. I know people who live near the mall, yet somehow this event is more distant. Because it wasn’t replayed in my living room. The first image I saw was a photograph on the front page of the newspaper I purchased this evening. While pumping gas, I found out a man didn’t realize he had been shot, that there is no making sense of a tragedy like this, that the shooter was “a good kid” with a troubled past. That President Bush was in the state and some graphic novel was available online. And that snow was in the forecast.
Headlines deliver a certain amount of information for my own thoughts to wrestle with. They do not carry with them the same emotional charge as even the photo I am looking at here in the paper of a Von Maur employee holding her little girl. They do not pull you into the story like television does, making you feel almost as if you were a part of it. The newspaper lets the news stay distant.
Perhaps that is why there is such an urgency to some of the discussion about policy in the wake of these tragedies. Do we need more gun control? A better police force? More security in all of our public places? Statistics say that violent crime is decreasing in America, yet we seem to feel more threatened than ever. More frightened. More willing to trade in liberty for a sense of security.
We appeal to a higher power, and that power is the state.
[tags]Westroads, Omaha, shooting, Hawkins[/tags]
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Article of Interest:
http://www.rzim.org/resources/essay_arttext.php?id=21
Another Piece: English Journalist: Turner, Steve
We believe in Marx, Freud and Darwin.
We believe everything is okay, as long as you do not hurt anyone to the best of your definition of hurt and to the best of your definition of knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is okay.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything is getting better despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there is something in horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed and our selves. He was a good moral teacher although we think His good morals were really bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same, at least the one that we read was. They all believe in love and goodness they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the nothing because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end and if the dead have lied then it is compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Changaize Khan.
We believe in Masters and Johnston. What is selected is average, what is average is normal, what is normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
We believe that man is essentially good it is only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society, society is the fault of conditions and conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him and reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust, history will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth except the truth that there is no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds and the flowering of individual thought.
POSTSCRIPT
If chance be the father of all flesh disaster is its rainbow in the sky and when you hear ‘state of emergency’ ‘sniper kills ten’ ‘troops on rampage’ ‘youths go looting’ ‘bomb blasts school’ it is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.
I believe parents better start parenting, or we’re gonna be in a whole heap of trouble very soon.
And that really is the only way to lessen these issues. That generally is where they start.
Crazy people with guns don’t scare me, this scares me;
“We appeal to a higher power, and that power is the state.”
Of course, we are fully armed.
Of course you are right, Christy. The main headline of the Lincoln Journal Star was interesting. From across the parking lot I could read, “We were all praying!”
“I read somewhere once that referring to other bloggers by first name only is supposed to come across as “cliquish” and that I should avoid it.”
I hate to comment on such a frivolous topic in the midst of such a serious event, but I will anyway.
Blogging is nothing if not cliquish.
The only thing we can really control is how welcoming we are to others who wish to enter into our clique.
The 1st thing that came to my mind was when Columbine happened and I was teaching at a very overcrowdd midddle school; so overcrowded that the lunch schedule had to be done in two shifts. Teachers talked about how kids get lost when there are so many kids: not enough time and attention to pass around to so many. One long term teacher said it so well–there are so many kids that they are bouncing off of the walls and each other, no wonder they completely loose it.
I was afraid to go to school and teach. I was afraid to send my children to school.
The shootings at the mall made think of the words of that teacher–there are so many of us that we begin to get lost in the crowd; we begin feel unimportant, insignificant, cooped up, confined in a world that seems to be shrinking. And then some of us loose it.
And as Dana points out, we begin to give up more of our liberties for a sense of security…a false sense of security if we really look at what it is that is causing so many people, often young people, some good people to come to such horrific, tragic deeds.
When and where does it stop? How do we begin to mend such a broken thing?
And yes, television does not help…it pulls you emotionally into the tragedy and science has shown that mind does not differentiate between actually being there and just living through and experience through visual or other means–the adrenaline pumps, the other homones surge, the brain synapses spark…it is all real in the world of the brain.
But the written word and a photo can put distance…maybe a healthy distance. We can still feel empathy, concern, fear…without actually feeling the horror of being in the tragedy itself.
I was thinking of you that day…glad to read this and your thoughts. Very tragic, and there seems to be no end in sight to this kind of horror. I’ve heard that Ravi Zacharias piece that Jack’s Porch mentioned. Ravi speaks often and with great discernment about moral relativity, and certainly that bears on this kind of tragedy.
I had just stopped at the mall the day before on my travels home to Iowa. As I opened the morning paper to read about this terrible tragedy, I made me think of how fragile and precious life is. My heart and prayers go out to the families and loved ones during this holiday season.
Charity, I think I’ll come back to your comment later. I have my own thoughts, but it will be awhile, I think. : )
Shawna, you are right. Interestingly, as I was looking up information last night I found that part of the fuel behind the common school movement in the 1800s was the concern over school violence. Gang behavior was increasing. Violence was a serious problem, especially on the frontier. It was a problem in England.
It has always been there. I don’t know that it has increased, but modern technology makes it more lethal. And it isn’t just guns. Explosives can be made as well. It is a scary world we live in, but I’m not so sure it is that different from previous ages. There are just more of us…and less time between events and learning about them.
Jennifer, that is very true. His thoughts on relativity are very relevant…and we like him around here, too. I went to see him speak in KC and got his autograph!
Angela, thank you for sharing your thoughts. The families are in my prayers, as well. Including his and the family that was caring for him.
Got here from BlogHer. We also do not have a TV in the house and I learned the news online. As long as guns are legal and allowed in the US, tragedies like this will continue to happen. I am living in the Middle East (Dubai) yet I feel safer here. Total gun ban in this country and crime rate is almost zero.
I’m glad that you were not there and I pray for those who were victimized.
Dana,
I used to live in Omaha less than 7 miles from Westroads. I asked my eldest if she remembered Omaha as she was 5 when we lived there. She kind of did.
I have a co-worker who hasn’t been seen since the shooting. Being I write from Dubuque, and one of the victims is from Dubuque with the same family name, I’m thinking they are related.
For some reason this bothers me more than, the guy leaving pipe bombs in the mailboxes here, the “Rodney King” riots when I lived in SoCal, and the attack upon the Pentagon in the area I used to go to on the job.
Maybe it is because so many are focusing on symptoms, not the cause.
Grace, Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I think there are too many cultural differences to so quickly relate crime rates in the UAE and USA to gun laws. Switerland has rather liberal gun laws with private gun ownership nearly as high as in the US and they have a much lower murder rate. Most of these crimes occur with weapons which were illegally obtained. And while there may be a chance of lowering the supply with an absolute gun ban, there is still quite a trade across the Mexican border that would not be stopped by this.
I do not think most Americans want to live in a society as tightly controlled as that of the Middle East which I think has more to do with the lower crime rates. Crime is punished in different ways, including potential execution for robbery, drugs, homosexuality, apostacy, etc. The nation is also less diverse than the United States.
From the Colorado shootings:
“The gunman was killed by an armed security volunteer at the church before police arrived, authorities said. The gunman’s name was not released. Officers found several smoke-generating devices on the church campus; their intended purpose wasn’t clear.”
By JUDITH KOHLER
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHURCH_SHOOTINGS?SITE=NCAGW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
How many more would have been victims if the armed security volunteer was not present? How many would have initially been killed if they all carried and concealed?
Also notice how the police arrived and found the criminal dead. How many more would have died if citizens had to wait for the police to defend themselves?
I believe that there are responsible gun owners and irresponsible gun owners. Then there are those that steal guns no matter who has them. That’s why responsible gun owners take the time to lock their guns up.
The thread over on my blog got so out of control I had to delete a few of the comments. We went from 25 down to 10 and that was because a lot of the comments left were from people trying to get a rise over those of us that would prefer not to glorify the shooter.
In any case… I think I’m going to try and get down to Von Maur this week if the weather will let up so I can snap some photos to share with you guys.
I’m really ticked off at the major news networks for not covering this story appropriately.
Thanks, Angela. And I noticed that with your commenters. You are right about responsibility…and even with gun control there are numerous ways to get guns in the United States. Drugs are tightly controlled substances with a total ban, yet we haven’t been able to get rid of them, despite our “war on drugs.” Guns are a little different, but if you want to kill people, there are a variety of ways to do so, and a number of ways to obtain weapons.