In 1999, I heard about a school shooting in Colorado. Over a dozen had been killed, almost two dozen others were wounded, and the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, killed themselves following the carnage they incited. The coverage transmitted before my eyes for days. I was unsure about what to think or how to feel beyond my sadness, surprise, and fearfulness that such an event could take place.
I was 11 and still ignorant to a lot of things in the world.
16 years later, I heard about a church shooting in South Carolina. Nine were killed, a few survived, and the killer, Dylann Storm Roof, was ultimately apprehended in Shelby, N.C. and confessed to everything. The coverage filled every computer screen and television before my eyes. This time there is no uncertainty in how I feel about the subject.
I am now 27 and am all too familiar with these kinds of events.
If I could go back in time and have a conversation with that 11-year-old boy, I would sit him down on his second-hand couch, run my fingers through his dark blond hair, and prepare him for the horrors to which he would spend the next 16 years being exposed. I would tell that 11-year-old boy about Larry Gene Ashbrook opening fire on a Christian rock concert in Fort Worth, Texas, Charles Carl Roberts slaying Amish schoolchildren, Seung-Hui Cho turning the Virginia Tech campus into a river of blood, Adam Lanza slaughtering five-and-six-year-olds without prejudice, and Dylann Storm Roof callously mowing parishioners down within a house of God. I would tell him these incidents, and the scores of others that will take place in between, will become part of the deal in being an American citizen.
I would tell him all of this before he had to endure the emotional and psychological drain these acts of violence would slowly wreak upon him.
I would tell this 11-year-old boy that the American people won’t do anything to stop it, that every time a tragedy such as this takes place the nation divides and bickers and threatens others. I would tell him that the Second Amendment to the Constitution would be used by various groups to justify militarizing the public. I would tell him that politicians would blatantly distort facts and information before a largely ignorant populous as a means to demonize political opponents. I would tell him that the ghosts of these victims would be ignored and their graves spat upon by people like Wayne LaPierre, Rep. Louie Gohmert, and 2016 Republican Presidential contender Lindsey Graham.
I would rather my 11-year-old self be made aware of the future before it happens.
I would tell 11-year-old me that the national prosperity in which he lived would quickly and mercilessly be taken away. I would tell him that America in my day is like a free-for-all — violence happens with stunning regularity.
Before stepping into the time tunnel, I would leave 11-year-old me with one final thought from the future. I would tell him that the Charleston shooting — nine days before his 28th birthday — would deviate his frustration from the assailants to the national public.
I would tell him that given the country’s lack of effort in stopping these shootings, I don’t know why we even cover them anymore. What good does it actually do? If we’re not going to take steps toward quelling the problem, even if it means portions of public doing something they may not want to do, then we have no right to treat each of these acts as if they’re breaking stories. We cannot call them “unthinkable” tragedies or “unspeakable” horrors. They happen all the time. To be an American is to accept that someone may murder you, and the public at-large will not care enough to do anything about it.
In many ways, we killed the victims in Charleston. Their deaths are also on us.
