IT’S THE SAME after every one of these, isn’t it? Mass shootings.
While the victims pile up, while the tragedies hit closer and closer to home, our reaction is becoming almost scripted.
We must speak about the unspeakable.
We must try to heal the unhealable.
And we must, for the sake of our sons and daughters, our children and grandchildren, make sense of the senseless and try to solve the problem that appears unsolvable.
That’s where the disconnect happens and the cycle begins to repeat.
Faced with the stress and trauma of these nightmares, our collective amygdala will offer us fight, flight or freeze. The emergency responders fight, the victims flee and the rest of us freeze.
In the days and weeks that follow, once the bodies are buried and the tears have dried, once our freeze response thaws, we still sit as if helpless.
Even when the monster strikes so close to home, we sigh listlessly and roll the dice that our families and our communities won’t be the next to fall victim.
Maybe the root of this particular evil isn’t untreated mental illness or gun possession. Maybe it’s selfish inaction and societal paralysis.
It’s only our most rosy-eyed optimism that leads us to believe this act of mass violence could have been prevented.
It wasn’t – because the last time someone opened fire on unsuspecting school children further afield, we in North America didn’t take the necessary preventative measures.
We were too selfish to look beyond our own preconceived narratives and entrenched ideologies. We were too selfish to work together toward something constructive.
The eventual solutions will be many – and maybe they will address mental illness and gun possession.
Maybe they will even involve significant changes to the way we approach policing and education and mental health supports.
We can be absolutely certain, though, that those solutions won’t go anywhere if they encounter a collective malaise as the clock counts down to the next tragedy strike.
We owe it to our children to act.
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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.
Mental health supports are available to those who need them.
BC Mental Health Support Line: 310-6789
Kids Help Phone: Text ‘CONNECT’ to 686868
