12 February 2010

Another Teacher Starts Shooting

Now it's Huntsville, Alabama. The shooter: a woman, allegedly angry at being denied tenure, opening fire on a faculty meeting. She's in custody, three of her colleagues are dead and more are hurt.

There's nothing to do but keep making the same point every time. If people were dying or only getting shot at this rate by "terrorists," this country would probably be under martial law now. If it wasn't, people would be demanding that something be done to reduce the public danger. We get complacency instead, if not fatalism. To many Americans, it seems, this is just what some people do. That attitude only guarantees that people will keep doing it. The rest of us might be willing to concede the point about human nature if we could convince others that the practical thing to do in light of human nature is to try to minimize the damage it can do. Is that too much to ask?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not until someone starts shooting up the senate and/or house or perhaps the RNC. Then something will be done.