My condolensces to the friends and families of the 32 folks who lost their lives yesterday. This is the deadliest such shooting in the U.S. and it must be a horrific feeling to find out someone you love was amongst the injured or dead.
Not to make light of this, but what was the second most deadly shooting? Last night I heard it was when Charles Whitman ascended the clocktower at the University of Texas in 1966 and killed 15 people, wouding 31 others. This morning, CNN tells me the previous record holder was a 1993 shooting in Killeen, Texas, when George Hennard shot and killed 23 people in a cafeteria.
Of course, the word Columbine has been tossed about and, here in the Bay Area, a few references have been made to the 1993 shooting in San Francisco at 101 California Street. I have, in fact, heard so many passing references to similar shootings in the last decade that I’ve lost track of them.
What the hell is going on in our society that this keeps happening? Is this a uniquely American thing? Are there regular campus shootings in France or England? Canada? The topic of gun control has, of course, been raised and, while I’m no fan of the NRA, I don’t think that’s the answer. The types of weapons used in this shooting can be found in those other nations I mentioned, though perhaps not in the same concentration.
It seems like things are getting worse. 1993 saw several such shootings, then Columbine triggered more than a handful in the early 2000s. A quick search on Wikipedia shows that, while there have been some shootings before the last 20 years and some outside of the U.S., a large number have happened in the U.S. since 1990 (15 out of 25 listed). What changed?
I don’t have answers or even suggestions I’m comfortable with. I’m just asking the same questions everyone else is. But there has got to be an answer. I’m sure the Freakonomics guys can tackle this one, if they haven’t already. As great a tragedy as this is, what’s really jumping out at me is just how many past examples the news is able to draw from for historial and illustrative perspective. What sort of nation have we become when I can use simple words like “Columbine”, “clock tower” and, now, “Virginia Tech” and instantly call up images of gruesome violence? This seems like a uniquely American problem, and I’d like to know why.
