Day 167
I saw the post about the shootings on MSN this morning and it was Columbine and Virginia Tech all over again.
I didn’t know until later that the total of wounded and dead was nearly 75.
Who does that?
Seriously. WHO DOES THAT?
The “kid” is 24. A brain child of neuroscience. He’s not an idiot. I want to know why he thought this was even in the realm of possibilities to do on an otherwise normal Thursday night.
What snapped? And it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing … this was carefully researched and thought out. He purchased items over months’ time. Who opens fire on a full movie theater? Who rigs up his apartment so that when the first responders go in they trip the bombs/wires. WHO DOES THAT?
It’s hard enough for me to grasp how ONE person can take the life of ONE other person. How is that not TERRIBLY wrong in that person’s mind?
It is incomprehensible to try to grasp last night’s violence. Innocent people watching a midnight movie … and then lives shattered, lost, altered forever.
WHO DOES THAT?
I was in Ace Hardware this evening and the clerk noticed my license plates and commented that someone in the store was from Colorado. I waved at her and said it was me. There were a handful of people in the store and we all stood around for a bit talking about this tragedy.
And, though it hit “home” for me because it happened in an area that I’m familiar with and I know people in that area and Sam knows people in that area … it touched everyone who heard about it today.
And I wondered about the ripple effect.
Did this kid want fame? Notoriety? Attention? He killed (at least) 12 people and injured another 60. WHO DOES THAT?
You tally up the deaths and casualties and then you add in the survivors … they are all victims. Will they EVER be able to go to another movie? EVER? You add in the families and friends of the deceased and wounded … will any of them ever feel safe again? You add in the friends of the friends who knew people affected and the total strangers whose compassion made their hearts ache as if they had lost a loved one themselves … and the tally goes up.
How many people were affected by this young man with 4 guns and a desire to kill? WHO DOES THAT?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that, once again, our security has been breached. Our defenses are heightened. Our need to protect, greater. I want to hug my kids. I want to hug my friends. I want to hug everyone.
Innocence lost. Trust lost. Security lost.
Again … one person changed the lives of us all today.
WHO DOES THAT?