I continue to think about Friday's shooting, and so many similar, horrifying events in recent years. A gunman or terrorist makes the decision to act, and an event that may take, what?, five minutes, ends up costing society many thousands, maybe millions of dollars. Someone is surely studying this; there are the huge numbers of law enforcement personnel from the local level on up, the communications, cars, trucks and armored vehicles, the losses to airlines and nearby retail establishments, the expensive stress on first responders, health and transit systems. There's media coverage locally, nationally and internationally. If the suspect survives, there are all the expenses of the legal system and his (or her) incarceration. There's the ripple effect of trauma that moves out from the center of the event (where professional mental health treatment may be necessary.) And there is no way to "calculate" the loss of lives, careers cut short, the effect of long drawn-out injuries, and debilitating grief. The excess cost to society from any one act of violence by only one person is truly incalculable and unimaginable.
And yet many of us cannot kill anything larger than a mosquito. (Speaking only for myself, if an entire battalion of fighters aimed their rifles at me, I could not and would not fight back. I would stand tall and hold them in the light, and hope they came to their senses.) We quietly go about the business of getting degrees, getting jobs (or work in other capacities), marrying or staying single. We have children or help care for other people, we volunteer, and we create art or music or poetry or novels or sculpture. We take walks or sail boats or hike mountains. Some of us pursue other personal dreams that have no potential to harm another human being. We are just trying to make a positive contribution to the world. We don't place undue financial or other stress on the system, and indeed, often we pay to do what means the most to us.
I not sure I am expressing this well, I don't know where to go with it, and perhaps I'm comparing apples to oranges. But clearly there is something askew here. For today, that's all I can say.
