It’s happened again: another shooting in another public place. Six weeks after the mall shootings in Kenya and only a couple of days after the shooting at the Los Angeles airport, this time, a lone gunman firing random bullets through the largest mall in New Jersey. Though armed to kill, this shooter chose not to turn his gun on others, only himself.
Katie and I had been at a mall in northern New Jersey earlier that day, not very far from this mall, where another young man with an unknown agenda turned an ordinary day into terror for hundreds of people. With the holiday shopping season pretty much already here, I made a mental note to try to do most of my shopping online this year. It’s not that I’m letting the events of the world change who I am and the way I do things. But then again, if I am really honest, maybe I am. I don’t love shopping to begin with, and malls during the holidays are a challenge, but all of these recent images of random violence at places that are supposed to be happy and innocent are making me rethink.
Am I paranoid? Maybe a little bit. Realistic? Absolutely. You can’t be scared of the world and hide from it. This is not the lesson we want to teach our children by example. But you can take certain precautions and if avoiding certain public places at certain times makes sense, I’ll be the first to follow.
For example, Times Square on New Year’s Eve has never held any appeal for me, even in my younger days when partying with just a few thousands of my closest friends should have been a big draw. Bill takes it even a step further, choosing to walk to his office uptown from Penn Station in a roundabout way that takes him out of the thick of the Times Square hustle and bustle.
We used to go out to the movies — a lot. These days, not so much. Certainly, the easy availability of movies for a heck of a lot less money on Netflix and the like has removed much of the necessity of going to a hot, crowded theater to pay outrageous prices. But there’s something about the movie theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado, that hit too close to home. It has to do with the universality of the movie-going experience that makes us all understand and empathize with the people who were like sitting ducks in their seats that night.
In just a few weeks we will be marking the one-year anniversary of one of the most horrific events in my memory — the killings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The school itself is no more — razed to the ground so that all that is left will be dust, hallowed ground, and the memory of the 20 children and six school staff who were gunned down that day.
However, one year and many tears later, nothing has really changed on the national landscape regarding guns or mental illness. Simply put: guns are too often accessible to the people who would most harm themselves or others. While gun laws could and should be more strict, in some cases, as in the case of Sandy Hook where Adam Lanza took guns legitimately bought and registered to his mother, they are irrelevant.
More relevant in these most recent shootings is the issue of mental illness and its proper diagnosis and treatment. The Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, was 20 years old. So was the Paramus mall shooter, Richard Shoop. Paul Ciancia, the alleged Los Angeles shooter, who coincidentally had southern New Jersey ties, is only 23. Three young men, all with some sort of societal rage and self-destructive bent determining their actions toward their fellow human beings. Each one troubled with their pent-up violence somehow missed by those closest to them.
The mall shootings in Kenya were different because it is apparent that they were orchestrated by terrorists and politically motivated. But when there are too many guns and not enough resources to deal with people who clearly need help, schools and public places can become a place where the sad and lonely carry out their most violent fantasies. Case in point: the recent school shooting in Nevada where a seventh grader killed a teacher before killing himself.
Here in New Jersey, family and friends of the young man who terrorized trapped shoppers for hours before turning his gun on himself are struggling with the why of his last moments on earth. While it’s reported that he was working out some issues in his life, most who knew him say he was well liked, a nice guy. But lately, it seems, it’s the nice guys, those you would least expect, who are picking up guns and creating terror and havoc.
The election this week has put in place a new crop of legislators and given incumbents a mandate. At the top of their lists should be giving more time, money, and attention to gun control and mental illness and where these two issues intersect. It is the only way to find out why so many young people are giving up on their lives and finding the ultimate answer at the end of a gun, often taking innocent lives with them.
