An awful thing has happened, as someone went on a rampage at West Virginia University, killing at least 31 people and injuring 10 more. Someone with a mental problem has opened up a social and psychic singularity, a black hole of grief and anguish that will consume several thousand people for years to come. Many will never emerge from its dark influence.
There’s nothing novel about it; we’ve all been here before and it comes in all sizes. There’s Oklahoma City, 9/11, the DC sniper, the Amish school killings, the guy who put acid on playground equipment yesterday (I wonder if he was counting on continuing news coverage?) And now this. And, we shouldn’t forget the world is full of children who grow up in places where tragedies on this scale are pretty much boilerplate in their daily news.
Whenever there is a mass tragedy, there is a wave of sympathy followed by a much larger wave of speculation as to how such a thing can be prevented. Legislators will be grandstanding in front of cameras and microphones, pretending that they know the cause and the solution. TV and radio pundits will go on long after we will all wish they’d just shut up. It will be blamed on lack of gun control, too much gun control, on godlessness, or on religion gone haywire. The finger will point at television, video games, rock music, “goth”, food additives, schools, parents, drugs, alcohol. The solution will be the opposite of all those things, no matter how incompatible they are, plus more guards, more surveillance cameras, tougher laws, and above all, prayer. Lots and lots of prayer, especially in the schools.
So let me just say, you can’t draw very reliable conclusions from statistical outliers. The guy who did this isn’t a needle in a haystack, but a needle in a Kansan vista. There isn’t much to be learned from this atrocity as far as public policy goes. No system can filter out such a rare individual without clogging entirely with the many ordinary people it catches in the same filter. Extremely rare events are difficult to plan for. Simple answers won’t do.
I doubt very much that any system will prevent such events. Even mentally ill people are creative, and they’ll find loopholes. In the end we will end up living with the risk, and also with the laws reflexively sprung into existence afterward.
I suggest two things. First, just listen and think for a year or two. Try to let the event gain some context. Whatever we throw together overnight is likely to do as much harm as good. Second, I suggest kindness. Just random acts of kindness, small words of encouragement to others at unexpected times for no reason at all. It won’t prevent events like this from happening. But it will shine a light against the darkness. Kindness is our most powerful rebellion against tragedy.