Building a Tolerance

Yesterday a crazy man shot up a workplace. Twelve people were killed. Eight were wounded. The shooter was taken out by police.

I could have said that sentence at any point in the past ten years and it wouldn't make people blink. Those same words have crawled across millions of television screens so many times that it may as well just say 'Congress fails to achieve consensus on budget.' for all the reaction it inspires in this country.
A man walked into a secure Navy facility yesterday with a shotgun and pistol, rained bullets on people that thought they were in for a typical Monday at work, and it is barely a blip on the radar.
I don't know about you, but I haven't heard anyone talking about this, posting things about this, or staring at their hands in impotent bewilderment over this. It is being taken in stride. That's where we are. 

The funny thing is, it feels like the news media is trying to make it the same big deal it always should be. Breathless reports, horrified onlookers, the whole schmeer.  The president even pitched in with an address right after the attack, and even trotted out the old chestnut about 'calling for stricter gun control measures'. But even  he sounded bored.

It happened. We've gotten used to senseless gun violence in unexpected places. Yay? Is that a good thing? Because we're less horrified by this, maybe we're better equipped to live in the nightmarish world we've created? That's probably the most you can say about it. I would love to believe that this is a unconscious, collective effort by all of us to not allow the shooter to be made into a celebrity by the media. Maybe we are all becoming aware that the way these tragedies play out in the media, the way the shooters are made into celebrities, with their personal lives scrutinized and motives analyzed, is what inspires copycat crimes, and keeps us on this mobius strip of insanity and death. It would make my day to know we are all taking so much responsibility.

But I'm a cynic. The fact is that with Aurora and Newtown so fresh in everyone's memories, this just doesn't have the hook. Isn't scary enough.  'Unstable man who was discharged from the Navy under less-than-favorable circumstances shoots other military contractors' is like a headline you see on the main character's desk in some B-movie. Like someone just threw together all the usual pieces. The fact that these were people with families and lives to lead just doesn't break through the veil. We've seen it before.

And it doesn't get better from here.