House of Eratosthenes

Gerard chose to caption the picture you see to the left “After the predictable killings comes the predictable vigil. Effectiveness? Zero.” Of course, that depends on how you define effectiveness. Nobody wants such acts of violence to occur and re-occur again and again. Not wanting it is easy. Acting like you don’t want it to happen again…that’s the tough part.

I think the vigil is remarkably effective. Effective for selling newspapers and getting people to tune in to the idjit box, that is. Effective at preventing the next murderous rampage? Not so much. And, as Gerard points out, the gun free zone doesn’t do much either. The way we make rules to address things like this, and the way we talk about it when the rules don’t do what we thought they were designed to do…none of this stuff looks like we really want the carnage to stop. Simply put, we act like we want more.

What I think is going unmentioned here is the ever-evolving way in which we talk about newsworthy events like this. It’s something we’ve discussed here before, noting how strange the wording seems now in a contemporary article about a horrible San Francisco accident in 1900. We put a lot of effort now into making things more seeeeeeennnnnsitive before they make it into the newspaper. In the case of structural accidents at football games, this has little to no effect at all on the likelihood the accident will happen again.

Not so much the case with people shooting other people, though. I think deep down everybody understands that.

Seldom does anybody directly address it, though.

Case in point: Another article about a horrible newsworthy event is much more recent than 1900, and closer to me than San Francisco. Specifically, this came out in my local paper on Friday (registration required). It describes the murder of a young man in a hotel parking lot a week ago. First four paragraphs…

It took Joe Hunter five years to rescue himself from the cycle of despair that followed the slaying of his 17-year-old son more than a decade ago.

When he did, Hunter made a decision: He would become a part of the lives of his five other children.

But he is being tested again.

Alex Hunter, Joe Hunter’s youngest child, was shot to death early Sunday while leaving the Doubletree Hotel off Arden Way, police said. He had just celebrated his 21st birthday when a man driving a car nearly hit his older brother in the parking lot, then got out of the car and began arguing with the group, witnesses said.

Bereaved Family …last three…

His father smiles when he talks about his son’s life, but has trouble listening to the story of his killing or looking at the bright yellow Ford Mustang the young man bought last summer.

He said he is trying to focus on remembering his son’s spirit, and he wants those who attend Alex’s funeral at 10 a.m. Monday at Antioch Baptist Church in Meadowview to dress in bright colors to celebrate his life.

“I’m going to get over … No, you can’t get over this,” Joe Hunter said. “But I’m going to stay strong, because he would want that.”

Joe Hunter’s story is indeed sad and troubling. But as my Sunday morning news channel drones on about how saaaaaaaaad the little kidlets are up in DeKalb, I’m becoming famished for some hard news about these things. They aren’t natural weather patterns, you know. Some tornado carries off a guy’s house, you can bring me some “news” about how he’s being tested and how he’s coming to grips with it and trying to stay strong. I won’t want too much else. If the house had his family inside, I’m still with ya.

But this wasn’t an Act of God.

This was an act of some dickhead with a gun.

Which makes this section in the middle of the story ironic and profoundly troubling…

Joe Londell Hunter, who was 18 when his other brother was shot to death less than two miles from the Doubletree, tried to come up with a license plate number or a suspect’s description for the police. No arrests have been made, and investigators simply said they are looking for a young man.

Sacramento Police Sgt. Matt Young said the trend of more and more simple arguments being settled with guns is “really disturbing.” Three people have been killed by gunfire in the city this year – all 22 years old or younger.

“Altercations that 15 or 20 years ago would have been handled with a fistfight, the young people in our society today are pulling out guns and killing people,” Young said. “What’s troubling is trying to pinpoint where these young people are getting this message that there’s no value attached to someone’s life.” [emphasis mine]

Where do they get the message that there’s no value attached to a life?

My answer to that would be the old adage about nature abhorring a vacuum. I don’t see any messages here that a life is worth much of anything. Yeah, there’s a family of people who are very sad now that the life is gone, I guess from that some would say the life has meaning. But I don’t think those are the people who have much need to get the message. You have to have some human decency for that to affect you.

Where’s the message that you’ll get punished if you take a life?

Where are the details that would help us everyday citizens to find this “young man”? I think it should be obvious to everyone, that phrase could benefit from a bit more narrowing-down.

If & when the young man is found, what is likely to happen to him? Depending on the circumstances when you shoot someone, there are a number of charges that could be filed, and it’s not necessary to find the perpetrator before there’s some definition involved in how the justice system is going to treat the crime. Seems to me a press that truly values human life, might see fit to mention some of that.

But above all, when people are special and have worth, you don’t just hope-against-hope they can ramble around unharmed for awhile, crying in your beer if a predator does happen to come along and carry off one or two. That is how you manage a flock of sheep. Or chickens. Except…not quite…because sheep and chickens have a little bit more value. If one or two sheep/chickens have gone missing, and then you’re out with your rifle and you see a wolf lurking around, you don’t take the time to confirm that this might, indeed, be the animal responsible for the shenanigans. You just cock and aim and shoot the sucker on sight.

Of course we can’t do that. Even predators against humans are human as well, and they do have rights. But I’m hard-pressed to see how that backs us into a corner of discussing only the family’s pain, and remaining so ignorant and reluctant to discuss the “hard” aspects of this story. You know. The stuff that might make it a bit more likely the thug will be taken down. And, if he isn’t, that the message will nevertheless get out that human life has value, and you’d better not end anybody else’s if you want your own to last awhile.

Look at it this way: The way we do things now, is supposed to be so much more “civilized” than having a gallows in the town square. We just take that at face value, leaving it unscrutinized. But can someone tell me please: If we did have a gallows in the town square, would we have a police sergeant bemoaning the problem that young people “are getting this message that there’s no value attached to someone’s life”?

I doubt it. I highly, highly doubt it. If I’m thinking of seriously killing someone, I take one look at those gallows, with my weight in a sandbag being test-dropped a time or two…and from that moment forward I’m going to be as gentle as a lamb.

As it is now, if I have those same thoughts, and I actually take the time to read a story like this one to figure out what’s going to happen to me, here’s what I get out of it: I’ll get away. Police are going to be looking for a “male” (I’m a little past the “young” stage). And I’ll make some people sad.

That’s it.

Time for a re-think of some things.

I really love the new slug line:

“investigators simply said they are looking for a young man.”

Really. That nobody saw beyond youth. The nobody can give one element of description of the killer past a general observation of youth.

Thanks fellas. Now I know who to look out for.
- vanderleun | 02/17/2008 @ 13:52
Waiting for the cops is about as dumb as waiting for the Robert E. Lee. Indeed, I think the colleges do want more of these things, because they love the victim role so much. Nothing like a big candlelight vigil to get everybody singing from the same hymnal. They are all free-fire zones now. What wacko wouldn’t be attracted to all those free targets? Plus guaranteed sympathetic profile in the media, and possibly, if you do it imaginatively enough, a biopic by Hollyweird. What’s not to like?
- dstanley777 | 02/17/2008 @ 15:54
What do people think a “no guns allowed in this facility” sign accomplishes?

Law-abiding citizens leave their guns behind, obeying the wishes of the establishment, while people for whom laws against robery, kidnapping, or murder didn’t deter them …. what’s the sign on the door for, exactly, again?

We have a local newspaper that had its sports editior murdered in the parking lot early one morning as he was leaving work.

They have a “no guns” sign on their door.

I would at least but I doubt it… that the employees are exempted from this policy.
- philmon | 02/18/2008 @ 20:13

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

We Act Like We Want MoreSunday, February 17th, 2008

We Act Like We Want More
Sunday, February 17th, 2008