The Day We Realized Our Culture Was Broken

 

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Life was simpler in nineteenth century Massachusetts. Mary Sawyer had a pet lamb, and one day, her brother persuaded her to bring it to school. The little schoolhouse was thrown into an uproar, and a witness to the event, John Roulstone, a nephew of the schoolmaster, the Reverand Lemuel Capen brought to Mary the first three stanzas of the famous poem.

Accounts differ on whether Roulstone wrote the entire poem, or if it was finished by Sarah Josepha Hale. Or indeed, if Hale composed the entire poem. At any rate, it describes an earlier time in our nation’s history, when the appearance of a lamb in a school was the most commotion one could reasonably expect.

On November 30, 2012, twenty year old Peter Lanza blasted his way through the locked front door of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut, and killed twenty children, no older than seven years old, along with six adult staff members. Prior to heading off to the school, he shot his mother in bed, four times in the face.

Most of his victims were shot multiple times, with one victim, a six year old boy, receiving eleven bullets. When authorities arrived, Lanza put a bullet in his brain.

The bullets were designed to stay in the victim’s body, causing the maximum damage possible as it exploded and tore through tissues. Let’s face reality here … these children weren’t just killed, they were ripped to pieces.

The gun was legal, the bullets were legal, and his mother, who bought the guns owned them legally. Peter Lanza suffered from no mental afflictions which would have made it illegal for him to purchase them himself, had he waited till his next birthday. There’s no evidence that the guns were modified – legal bullets were used, and both gun and ammunition performed the task for which they were created – to inflict maximum damage to human bodies.

 

Those who call for the elimination of these weapons don’t claim that they’ll stop the violence. At best they hope it will lessen the death toll next time. Others blame violent video games, but those are popular in most industrialized nations, without the type of violence seen here. Still others point to violent movies and music, but again, they are popular throughout the world, without this kind of madness.

 

Finding the cause of the problem, rather than just treating the symptoms, is made much harder when there are more incidents. The truth is, any number of things can make a fragile mind crack.

 

There’s an old adage that to find the source, follow the money. The money here is in advertising. Television specials on the tragedy pull big ratings, that pulls advertisers who sell products. When you click on an article there are paid advertisements. The media and the advertisers, are raking in profits earned by the blood spilled by Lanza.

Those looking for simple answers and solutions will find none. If you look with sane eyes at the cause of the tragedy, you’ll find no satisfaction. It’s only by looking through the eyes of madness that we’ll find the cause, and only then can a reasonable debate on how to stop it can be held.

Till then we can only treat the symptoms – better care for the mentally ill, gun control, school security – it’s just a question of what is politically acceptable and how much do we restrict our civil liberties. And also, how much do we break the bank to fight another war we’re destined to lose. Here are twenty six life stories which weren’t supposed to end this way. It would be one thing if this was an isolated event. But it’s not. Columbine showed us that our most vulnerable citizens weren’t safe, almost fifteen years ago. We didn’t listen to the voices of madness then, instead choosing to place blame, point fingers, do nothing and then stick our collective heads up our collective asses and ignore the problem.In one classroom during Lanza’s rampage, the teacher, Lauren Rousseau was killed with a single shot to the face. He then proceeded to kill every student in the room, with the only survivor being a six year old girl who had the presence of mind and sheer dumb luck to play dead. She was the first student to escape from the school. Covered in the blood of her classmates, her first words were “Mommy, I’m OK, but all my friends are dead.”Once upon a time, Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.