Shootings highlight the extraordinary risks of ordinary life
No person or place is sacred or safe anymore.
A beloved football coach is gunned down at a high school in Iowa. A security guard is killed at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. An abortion doctor is shot to death at church in Kansas.
Across the country, people are arming themselves -- some of them angry, some of them terrified, some of them angry and terrified at once. Everyday encounters seem to carry a deadly potential.
A guy in my part of town causes consternation everywhere he goes, and you can't help but notice him. He drives a flaming red sports car and puts the pedal to the metal, weaving in and out of traffic and skidding into parking lots. He's at least 65 years old, but he acts like an angry adolescent.
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I was at the local grocery store when he blazed in, grabbed a few items and cut in front of me in the checkout line. He appeared not to have seen me, apparently because he was in such a hurry.
Usually, I have no problem deferring to folks who are running behind schedule. This time, I remarked that I was next in line.
The man turned on me, red-faced, and yelled, "No, I'm next!"
Without raising my voice I addressed the man as "Dude" and suggested that he stand behind me. But then the counter clerk -- who'd obviously dealt with this guy before -- took over, quickly rang up the man's purchases and sent him on his way.
In itself, the encounter doesn't mean much: just another patch of incivility in an all-too-uncivil world. And it would have remained only that, if I hadn't seen this rude and bizarre bully later.
He pulled up to a local gun store, jumped out of his car and hurried inside.
The gun store gets a lot of traffic these days. The sign outside proudly proclaims, "Glock Nation." Whether this is Glock Nation or just plain old America, you never know who's packing a gun.
For all I know, Mr. Crazy owns lots of guns. Maybe he was packing that night in the grocery store, and I was risking my life by standing up to him.
Most of the people buying guns aren't crazy, but some of them seem to be readying themselves for a day of reckoning. Will tomorrow's victim be another coach, or doctor, or museum guard? Will the next shooting be in a high school, or a college dorm, or a fast-food restaurant?
The news stories -- some the day after a shooting, some in other contexts -- tell of Americans teetering on the edge of emotional breakdown. Meanwhile, gun ownership has skyrocketed. It's time someone articulated the simple fact that this is no way to live.
We're not talking about mere civility here. Unless we begin a full-fledged education campaign to turn our society around -- a campaign that should involve everyone -- we'll be digging our collective graves. We need leadership that will dare insist on restraints on guns, for example, instead of simply acquiescing when a lawmaker suggests allowing them in national parks.
My neighborhood's Mr. Crazy is part of a nationwide franchise, with outlets as varied as road rage and mass murder. The bad behavior starts with people running red lights and stop signs, punching unsuspecting motorists, and cutting in line at the supermarket. It proceeds in some cases -- far too many -- to deadly violence.
We should all be afraid of where that might end.
Syl Jones, Minnetonka, is a playwright and corporate communications consultant.
