For No Reason

The senseless murder of 19 fourth graders and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, only days before summer break, is incomprehensible. Like you, I find myself unable to shake images of terrified children watching in horror as their classmates are gunned down, knowing that the bullets would soon find them. Paralyzed with fear, the 10 and 11-year-olds could do nothing but wait for death. I studied each of the murdered victim’s faces shown on the front page of my newspaper for a long time with feelings of profound sorrow, not only for the children who were murdered for no reason and their grieving families, but for our violent-plagued society as well.

The country we all love has devolved into a deeply troubled land. A person in the United States, according to recent crime statistics, is 57 times more likely to be killed by a gun than in any other industrialized country in the world. On the radio recently I listened to children tell their parents they wanted to move to another land, where they would feel safer. Children and teachers all across America live with anxiety and fear that their school will be targeted next. 

I worry about children who sleepily climb into the bus in the morning but may not return in the afternoon. Will their faces and voices erupt with smiles and laughter when the last period bell rings? Or will SWAT teams be sorting through the carnage of yet another mass shooting? The violence that has taken the lives of so many children has no geographical, racial or economic boundary. One school is as vulnerable as another.

We can debate the reasons why America is such a violent nation. We can argue that there are too many assault style weapons on the streets or not enough police in schools or that there are insufficient background checks on those purchasing weapons or that political ineptitude stunts our ability to enact reasonable gun safety laws. But debating the reasons doesn’t change the reality that it is only a matter of time before another school shooting takes place and more innocent children and teachers are shot dead. We have grown calloused to little children in body bags being wheeled into ambulances. 

The shooter in the Uvalde tragedy, who was killed by police, was said to have been a loner, a young 18-year-old without friends and without close relationships. I wonder if his isolation contributed to his feelings of anger and hate. In all likelihood mental illness played a role in the profoundly disturbed teen’s life, but acute loneliness may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

Perhaps we will never know what triggered his rage, but what we do know is that when we have a circle of healthy relationships we are psychologically better able to handle the day to day stresses of life. Whatever was missing in this troubled teen’s life, caring and loving relationships would probably top the list. 

The modern world can be a frightening place, especially for children and teens. We may feel at times that a toxic fog of hopelessness hangs over our culture. If we buy into the nihilistic propaganda that there is nothing to live for but power, drugs, money, sex and entertainment, then life can soon lose any meaningful and enduring purpose, and a sense of despair can overwhelm us.

This unparalleled national crisis will not be solved by politics alone. Regardless of which party attains power, the cure for our dystopian society will not be found only in Washington or state legislatures. 

America’s unique problem is without equivalency in other advanced countries. Why? Why is our country so violent, so different from others? Soren Kierkegaard, the thoughtful Danish philosopher, wrote that there is no lack of knowledge in the land, something else is missing. With 24 hour news coverage and social media everywhere, there is no lack of knowledge in America. So what are we missing? In a country that has so much, what is it we lack?

Maybe one thing that is missing is a sense of community. Our technological world has allowed us to live in silos, where our interactions with people are filtered by our digital devices that, ironically, tend to weaken our sense of community. Text messaging, cell phones and other platforms like Zoom have become convenient ways of communicating with others, and to some degree, they have benefited us. 

But technology cannot convey the warmth, the comradery and the human touch of human presence. Our self-made silos create an artificial sense of being there, similar to looking through a glass window thinking we are with the person on the other side. While the window allows an awareness of the other person, without unmediated and direct human presence, we remain unfulfilled and yearn for more.  

We deceive ourselves if we think that our children or teenagers are developing healthy social skills and interpersonal relationships by spending countless hours on cell phones and social media. These impersonal tools can never take the place of a human touch, a caring embrace, the flesh-and-blood presence of another human being or an understanding heart that is palpably near. We well remember the feelings of loneliness and depression caused by the pandemic, when remote communication became necessary. How we missed and yearned for human contact, to be in the same room with another person, to be present with others in the flesh!

Other industrialized nations are also struggling with an erosion of social bonds, but what these countries don’t have that America has is a gun culture.  A declining sense of community coupled with almost unrestricted gun access is a lethal combination. It appears the gun culture is here to stay, but strengthening our community relationships might reduce at least some of the acts of violence.

What if the shooter in Uvalde had experienced a greater sense of human presence in his life? What if he had been embraced by his community from an early age and felt acceptance and love? Would his life still have spiraled out of control? I wonder.

To be sure, no one is to blame for what happened in that elementary school in Texas, except for the murderer. But, perhaps, had he been engaged in meaningful and healthy relationships with others and had a shared sense of community, a terrible tragedy might have been averted. We know that socially well-adjusted people are not born that way, but are developed through strong social ties and healthy interpersonal relationships.

There is no lack of knowledge in the land, something else is missing.