Colorado shooting

Not having cable, I heard about the Colorado theater shooting on the Diane Rehm show this morning. A caller said, "We glorify violence in this country" and I agree with her.  Just look at the most popular shows on T.V. and movies, all the Law and Order spinoffs. The country seems poised on the far edge of insanity right now with the election, economic woes, and war with Syria on the horizon. So far I haven't read what the shooter's motivation might have been, only that he was dressed as Batman's arch enemy, the Joker.

I'm very glad we opted not to get cable. It's saved us many hours of angst and anger, from election politics to this horrific event. We learn what we need to from our computers and listening to NPR...And I  know that the coverage of this event will go on for many days--I'm not saying it shouldn't, just that I'm glad not to watch it.  

Interesting that James Holme's mother said they had the right man when he was taken into custody. I would love to know the origin of that statement. Surprising that a person could walk into the theater from an unlocked exit door--possibly he paid for a ticket and then left the theater to get his guns--being armed with a rifle, a shot gun and two revolvers would surely prohibit your admittance into a theater.

Soon we will have metal detectors to go through when we enter a movie theater. Schools do it, why not a theater? I don't think the answer is gun control although I think the screening process should be a bit more stringent, especially the psychological profile.

And so our attention is taken from the election to focus on yet another crazy, one who is not an elected official. These shootings have become way too frequent. Do other industrialized nations have this level of craziness and violence? I don't think so. We've been at war for most of this country's history in one way or another. Violence is part of our nature and we don't seem to evolve or have the ability to sublimate. Think of all the jokes about Canada and how they don't carry guns--wusses and goons we call them because of this. 

The U.S. takes pride in their gun-toting independent nature. We have more jails here than anywhere else in the world. We are the only nation that still has the death penalty and people revel in the executions. We have veterans coming back from war severely disturbed and expected to just join back into society. We don't have enough facilities to treat these psychological traumas and we don't as a society recognize the beginnings of aberrant behavior--little money is put into health and social services. 

Instead of working as a society to find out why these events are occurring so often, we will put in metal detectors. And we won't address the deeper issues that cause a person to open fire in a crowded movie theater.