Thoughts on the Aurora shootings
“What kind of person brings an AK-47 into a classroom?” Grey’s Anatomy (7x11, Disarm)
It’s been about a year and a half since I saw that episode of Grey’s Anatomy but I think any recent college graduate knows what it means. Virginia Tech was only a little over five years ago but we still remember it, and to a certain degree, that simple question – what kind of person does bring an AK-47 into a classroom? – resonates with us.
Classrooms are supposed to be sacred.
You might disagree with your college. Not all of us will love our university unconditionally. But there is a part of us, somewhere deep inside, that believes that a university is sacred. That learning is sacred.
Knowledge is power has been engrained so deeply into us that the very thought of not believing that – or worse, believing in the contrary! – bothers us. Maybe even disturbs us.
Because there’s an implication behind that statement: if you strip away our knowledge, then we are powerless.
And yet the point of this post is not Grey’s Anatomy’s writing, or Virginia Tech, or even the philosophical debates behind “knowledge is power”, but something far more recent, and in some ways, something that hits far closer to home: the shootings in Aurora.
Before I really begin I want to express my thoughts, sympathies, and prayers to the families and victims of the shootings. What happened was an absolute tragedy, and there aren’t words that are adequate enough to express my condolences.
Second is, I understand how hard it is right now. Both to understand on a cognitive level what happened, and also, just to accept what happened.
I don’t remember Columbine well – I think I was too young at the time to fully comprehend the magnitude of the events that transpired that day. But the impacts of Columbine had a ripple affect throughout the world and eventually it hit Geneva, Switzerland.
But I was 11 years old, and still didn’t quite understand why the professors suddenly so quiet, or why my parents were so quiet at dinner. Something was wrong, and something terrible had happened, but the who or why or how – that would take much longer to understand.
In some ways it would take Virginia Tech to fully be able to understand why people were asking “but how could this happen to me?”
There are some things, which are completely trivial, that we also believe to be sacred. I’m not using “sacred” in the traditional sense of the term but more “we believe that nothing can touch us in this environment”.
Something mundane like going to class in high school, or an early morning class at university, or, even, like the premiere of a movie.
There’s a part of me that believes the shootings in Aurora affect us so profoundly because it is so easily not just to pretend but to believe that it could have been of us. Because we are all been there.
We have all been to high school. Most of us have had an early morning class at university. Most of us have, at some point in our lives, seen the premiere showing of a movie.
We have, at some point in our lives, been there before.
Maybe that’s why writing this is so hard for me. I have the word document open, true, but it’s not the only thing – CNN is playing not quite as background noise but almost, and I have Twitter open at the same time.
I’m writing this as confirmation of Jessica Ghawi’s death is hitting the wires.
Confession: I couldn’t write that sentence without tearing up a little.
I didn’t know her, and I won’t pretend to. I glanced at her twitter and there’s a part of me that wishes I hadn’t because is there really anything more heartbreaking than reading someone’s final words to the world?
She was an aspiring sports journalist, eager to see the premiere of the new Batman movie, and now she’s dead.
I don’t quite know what to make of that.
I mean, realistically I do.
She’s dead. That’s simple, right? She was shot twice, one in the lower body (correct?), and once in the head. The odds of surviving something like that is not in your favor. And that’s tragic, in every sense of the term.
The other part, the one that’s sobering for me, is how easily it could have been me.
Because to a certain extent, I’ve been her.
I’ve been that aspiring journalist.
Haven’t we all?
Haven’t we all wanted something in our life? Haven’t we all had dreams, or ambitions, or the like? I remember what it was like, starting out. I remember having plans. Having dreams. Not only knowing what I wanted in life, but also how to get there.
I remember it because it wasn’t that long ago. 6 months. A year. Two, at the most, and yet, with the news reports in the background, it feels like yesterday.
My eyes are still stinging a little as I write this, because the sharp realization – I’ve been that journalist, it could so easily have been me, it’s still there, it hasn’t faded.
It’s so incredibly sobering that a few thousands miles – simply being in a different country – is really what separates us.
I wasn’t there, she was. I didn’t know her, and yet I can’t help but feel affected by her death.
Grey’s Anatomy once famously asked “what kind of person brings an AK-47 into a classroom?”
It’s a valid question, but the events in Aurora raise a separate kind of issue.
It goes beyond “what kind of person brings an AK-47 into a movie theatre?” and more “what kind of person does that at all?”
Reports are drifting in, little by little. His name is James Holmes. He is in his 20’s. He was a neuroscience student at University of Colorado. He was, according to French press, a “recluse”.
He was a lot of things, but primarily, he was someone who walked into a crowded theatre and opened fire.
The saying goes knowledge is power, but the question remains the same.
What kind of person brings an Ak-47 into a classroom, and what kind of person brings those kind of weapons into a theatre?
I don’t understand. I don’t know, either.
And I just feel a little lost.