Thumbnail credit: Jay Janner for Austin American Statesman and Associated Press.
This isn’t going to be about politics. This isn’t going to be about mental illness or race or all of those other topics that pop whenever a mass shooting happens. These are all topics that should be yelled from the treetops and skyscrapers until your throat burns, and then once your voice feels like it’s going to give out you need to scream them—but this article isn’t going to be about that.
Unless you live in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no internet or television or newspapers or even a radio, you all know that on Sunday, November 5, 26 people were killed in a mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Who killed them? Who cares? Who fucking gives a shit about a guy who mercilessly murdered an 18-month-old toddler and a 71-year-old grandmother? Who gives a shit about the guy who killed a pregnant mother and a married couple? Who cares?
You wanna know who I care more about? I care about the families, the parents and children and the husbands and wives and the brothers and sisters who have to see their relatives’ murderer’s face on every single television screen, on every single newspaper article, on every single Twitter feed and Facebook post and YouTube video, like this guy is someone who needs to be remembered. Like this guy deserves to have his name plastered over every single source of media possible. Like we, as Americans, have a duty to find out why this guy decided to go and shoot 26 people in cold blood, why his name deserves to be remembered over those who died. Why can I remember Devin Kelley and Stephen Paddock and Omar Mateen and Adam Lanza and Seung-hui Cho and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold over those they killed? Why can’t I remember a single victim’s name from Columbine or Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook or Pulse or Las Vegas? And now, Sutherland Springs. Tell me, can you remember any of the victim’s names? Just one?
Picture credit: David Abate for the Associated Press.
Can you remember two of them?
Three?
Twenty-six?
And what about the murderer’s families? How does it feel to know that the son you loved, the brother you played catch with, the boyfriend who took you to prom, turned out to be a murderer? How does it feel to know that you’re going to be blamed for your son’s actions, even though you had nothing to do with any of this? Susan Klebold talked about her own pain when she found out her son was one of the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre, but how many other families have the support and bravery to do the same? Susan Klebold is just one voice and even then, most people only know her because of her connection to her son and not the good work she is trying to do. They don’t know her because she’s another victim from her child’s rampage: they know her because her son was a murderer. Her son comes before any other part of her identity, over any other message she tries to send to the victims of similar tragedies. How many people know that the victims—all the victims—are more important than the shooters, that when people see mass shootings on television, that makes people more likely to repeat them?
How many more people have to die before we stop focusing on the motivations of the killers and start helping the broken families heal? Will it be one? Two?
Twenty-six?